and you mentioned trade agreements by talking about the EU's closed shop attitude. A trade agreement is a closed shop attitude
Nothing passes you, I forgot about that.
No it is not, when it is a bilateral agreement. A trade agreement just makes those points of sale that are particularly important to the two nations favourable to both. They are free to create trade deals with others. What you are referring to are agreement that are labelled free trade deals when they are not like TTIP etc. They tend to favour particular industries at the expense of those that they should profit i.e. the people and nations.
The EU is an inward looking tariff union that has caused much harm to, say, the African states. It protects its products by setting a levy on imports thereby making them uncompetitive in such lucrative markets that the EU was and to some extent is but to a lesser extent.