When Donald Trump reached the White House in January, one of the biggest threats that his administration posed to the status quo was in trade. Saying that trade deals in general, and the North American Free Trade Agreement in particular, had cheated the US out of jobs and exports, he vowed to rewrite them, if necessary by unilateral diktat.

More than two months in, the prevailing attitude in the community of trade policymakers is bemusement. True to his word, Mr Trump immediately pulled the US out of the regional Trans-Pacific Partnership and demanded a renegotiation of Nafta with its other two members, Mexico and Canada. But it is unclear to what extent he wishes to destroy and rebuild the architecture of trade governance rather than give it a judicious redesign.

Mr Trump sees China as the main rival to the US in determining the rules of world trade. But across the Atlantic, the EU is quietly going about the business of signing trade deals and extending its standards around the world. Even without the formal imprimatur of agreements, EU regulation has increasingly become the norm in large economies, including, at times, the US.