>whilst the EU is out there building the new free [trade] world, with itself as the biggest lynchpin.

Being an international pushover with no teeth that folds like a deck chair to demands at negotiations, isn't "building the new free [trade] world,", or at least not one that benefits the EU. Free trade isn't always a benefit for your own citizens and industries. Do you want to import low quality agriculture made by slave labor that will undercut your own farmers and put them out of business? Do you want to import unlimited people without assurance the government has enough housing, childcare and medical staff already in place for said new people? There's a reason borders and goods have some restrictions, because sudden heavy imbalances lead to destabilization of society and democracy.

The recent free trade agreements the EU has been desperately signing lately (mercosur, etc) are just short term gain for long term pain down the road, since everyone has the EU by the balls right now so they're squeezing as much as they can from them now while they're busy with Russia and expensive energy.

EU capitulating to foreign trade pressures, is not gonna create a superpower like dreamers think, it's gonna create new dependencies with other countrie, which is gonna backfire like their dependency to US tech and Russian gas did, in the future when those countries will have a strong grasp over EU critical sectors, they will then demand concessions from the EU, and the EU will again fold like a deckchair because the EU is never in a position to bully others or retaliate, further losing power internationally and remaining a pushover where its citizens lose, while the core issues plaguing the EU(demographics, debt, government speeding on welfare, lack of innovation and manufacturing in key sectors, no VC funding) will remain and continue to grow.

Signing deals to import more people and cheap food and stuff from Latam, India or wherever to depress wages and prices, doesn't fix any of that, it just kicks the can down the road.