A key argument against the "cows-for-cars" Mercosur trade deal is that the European market will be flooded with farm products that don't meet strict EU regulations, just as with Ukrainian beef, eggs and poultry, thereby driving independent European farmers out of business. In his confidence-vote speech to Parliament on Jan. 13, Agriculture Min. Martin Šebestyán said that farming and food production is a strategic sector and that the CR is losing its food self-sufficiency. He wants to focus on this, he said, including reducing dependence on imports from neighboring EU countries and the third world. Strangely, he didn't mention Mercosur one way or the other. When the EU governments voted to pass the trade deal two weeks ago, Andrej Babiš threw a bone to the Germans and went against the Poles and Hungarians. When MEPs voted yesterday to postpone the trade deal, ANO's team abstained. For the Czech government there seems to be a sort of Mercosur trade triangle, with Agrofert's interests playing as much of a role as Volkswagen's. Missing is an explanation of exactly how a deal that reduces V4 food self-sufficiency will benefit Czechs.