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Across the board

This section contains news and analysis of sweeping developments that affect the overall push and pull towards FTAs and bilateral investment treaties. This means major trends relating to bilateralism, often with global consequences, and other cross-cutting issues. New developments arising from US politics, the WTO or South-South alliance-building, for instance, are often reported here as they tend to have systemic impacts.

last update: May 2012

How capitalism and other viruses are ravaging the Global South
19-May-2020     Jacobin
The economic hegemony exerted by the trade regime — and related financial structures — mirrors and extends old colonial patterns of exploitation and dispossession. Its policies represent our “normal.”
What global trade deals are really about (hint: it's not trade)
11-May-2020     TEDx Talks
Haley Edwards breaks down the history of trade and explains how the idea of global trade has transformed in the past decades.
Stop all trade and investment treaty negotiations during COVID-19 crisis and focus on access to medical supplies and saving lives
22-Apr-2020     Friends of the Earth International
An open letter to Trade Ministries and the World Trade Organisation (WTO).
Putting an end to the EU’s neo-colonial policies in the field of trade and investment
14-Apr-2020     CADTM
The destructive effects of these free trade agreements signed with the EU are already clearly visible in the majority of countries of the South.
Trump sights in WTO procurement pact for leverage on UK, EU
5-Feb-2020     Bloomberg
By threatening to withdraw from the GPA, the Trump administration can increase its leverage and obtain greater public procurement concessions in bilateral talks with the EU and UK.
Paraguayan FM: Ties with Turkey strengthen through further cooperation
24-Jan-2020     Daily Sabah
The Paraguay president plans to visit Turkey in March 2020 and sign an agreement for the reciprocal promotion and protection of investments.
After China trade deal, Europe and UK next on Trump's to-do list
23-Jan-2020     Reuters
US President Donald Trump vowed to rip up international trade deals and rebalance America’s global trade relationships.
Neoliberalism and the end of politics
6-Jan-2020     Counter Punch
Understanding power is more important to predicting the winners and losers of neoliberal economic policies than knowing the economics.
We need a socialist trade policy
9-Dec-2019     Jacobin
Instead of imagining trade as an end in itself, or as the driver of job creation and production, we should think about trade as a support mechanism for well-defined political goals centered on improving the lives of working people.
RCEP: Does free trade reduce inequalities, ask Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo in their new book
7-Nov-2019     Scroll.in
Data shows that poverty reduction slows down in areas impacted the most strongly by trade liberalisation, says the book.