ISDS Case Map
New Zealand
A Trans-Pacific trade deal opening the door to freer trade with the United States is in the balance after top-level meetings in Washington.
Vanuatu's government has indicated its support for a proposed regional free trade deal between Australia, New Zealand and the wider Pacific region.
At a time when New Zealand needs the flexibility to respond to pressing domestic economic priorities, and with fresh questions being raised in Australia about the value of their free trade agreements, now was not the time to be signing away New Zealand's economic sovereignty, Professor Jane Kelsey told a select committee this morning considering the ASEAN-Australia-New Zealand free trade agreement.
Australia's biggest ever free trade agreement has been branded as mediocre by one of the first detailed reviews of the deal.
The careful stage management of announcements on free trade agreements is not new. But the US decision to defer negotations on the Trans-Pacific Partnership should encourage us to look beyond the simplistic assumptions that the more free trade agreements we sign, the better off we will be, based mainly on some fanciful modelling of the gains to agricultural exporters.
Indonesia is preparing massive financial and technical support for meat and tropical fruit businesses in a bid to cash in on ASEAN's free trade deals with Australia and New Zealand.
The new ASEAN-Australia-New Zealand Free Trade Agreement falls well short of what could be considered a good deal for Australian industry, according to the Shadow Minister for Trade, Warren Truss.
Don't misread Kirk's testimony to yesterday's meeting of the US Senate Finance Committee as an omen that the last rites are imminent for New Zealand's prospective regional free-trade deal with the world's largest consumer nation. Instead focus on Kirk's confident statement during his Senate confirmation hearing that President Barack Obama will seek renewed trade promotion authority (or fast-track) at the "appropriate time".
New Zealand research and education network ARENA today welcomed news that the United States has postponed trade negotiations with New Zealand pending an overall review of US trade policy, and says that the New Zealand government should follow suit.
What right does the Australian government have to impose a free trade agreement on the peoples of ASEAN, without any sort of systems in place to represent their views or interests (rather than the views or interests of their rulers) in negotiations? And how many Australians want a free trade agreement with vicious, murderous regimes like Burma's military junta anyway?
