In this article we aim to highlight the importance of the European Union in international trade. In this sense the work is divided into two parts. In the first part, we intend to highlight the role of the EU in trade negotiations taking place worldwide. In the second part we will analyze the evolution of EU trade flows during the period 2002-2017. In this paper, we will analyze the trade in goods of the EU-28. To achieve this goal, we used as a method of research, analysis documents. The data collection was done by analyzing several documents, such as: specialized articles, European Commission communications, EU technical datasheets, the Global Competitiveness Index.