This chapter employs two contrasting theoretical frameworks for assessing the EU’s foreign forest ‘policy mix’. These are “Trading Up” and “Ecologically Unequal Exchange” (EUE) respectively. While Trading Up positions the EU as an environmental leader whose role is to bring the rest of the world up to its high environmental standards, EUE, in contrast, views the EU as a driver of global forest loss due to its unequal accumulation and consumption of global wealth and resources, and the resulting displacement of environmental harms. Each of these frameworks embodies different assumptions about the roles of policy and trade in shaping environmental and social outcomes, with conflicting implications for policy effectiveness. The findings of this chapter’s comparative analysis reveal that, while there is some variation among individual policy instruments, EU foreign forest policy places strong emphasis on law enforcement, standardization, measurement and enforcement. This is consistent with a Trading Up perspective, but inconsistent with an EUE perspective. Designing a ‘smart’ policy mix that better incorporates insights from EUE would require more emphasis on reducing EU consumption and supporting developing country initiatives that prioritize domestic and local access to forest resources, production and trade.