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  1. Negotiations

:: 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

International trade partnerships: Deal or no deal?
3-Aug-2014     Oxford Analytica
Obstacles in several countries could delay the negotiations of TPP and TTIP — and possibly scupper the deals entirely, says Oxford Analytica. Infographic.
Joseph Stiglitz warns on ‘free’ trade deals
9-Jul-2014     Finance News Network
"I think all countries that are a part of the Trans-Pacific Partnership free-trade agreement ought to worry," says former World Bank Chief Economist and Nobel Prize Winner, Professor Joseph Stiglitz
Trans-Pacific free-trade pact 'old-fashioned': ex-WTO chief
28-May-2014     AFP
Former WTO chief Pascal Lamy calls the Trans-Pacific Partnership "the last of the big old-style trade agreements" while ''the new era begins with the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership.''
No to trade deals that threaten democracy!
21-May-2014     IUF
A new publication from the International Union of Food, Agricultural, Hotel, Restaurant, Catering, Tobacco and Allied Workers' Associations (IUF) exposes the corporate power grab at the core of two mega-treaties: TPP and TTIP
Imperialism and the new free trade deals
23-Apr-2014     In defence of marxism
Far from being a means to open up the world to a further intensification of trade, TPP and TTIP will carve up the world into two or more power blocs waging economic war with one another.
Jon Weissman: A free trade pact’s sorry numbers
28-Mar-2014     Gazette Net
New evidence of the US-Korea Free Trade Agreement’s damaging record provides the latest reason why Congress should not delegate away its constitutional trade authority and allow the Trans-Pacific Partnership to be “fast-tracked” into place.
Rough trade: the new corporate power grab
1-Mar-2014     Red Pepper
Trade and investment agreements currently being negotiated will mean the biggest corporate power grab in a decade. We need a new global movement to confront them, writes Nick Dearden
American-European trade pact could dwarf TPPA if it becomes a reality
21-Feb-2014     Bernama
Economies like Malaysia would have to adhere to the tariff levels agreed to between both the EU and the US if they want to export to these markets and those of other potential members such as Japan and South Korea.
Spying by NSA ally entangled US law firm
17-Feb-2014     New York Times
The Obama administration often emphasizes the NSA’s role in fighting terrorism and cyberattacks, but disclosures in recent months from the documents leaked by Mr. Snowden show the agency routinely spies on trade negotiations.
TPP would 'upgrade' US trade pacts, says US Commerce chief
5-Feb-2014     WSJ
The TPP is designed "to create a high-standard global trade agreement that addresses a bunch of issues that have not been addressed before in our trade agreements," US Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker said, adding, "And frankly, if we don't do it, someone else is going to set the standard."