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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

US officials reach agreement on trade deals to open way for Peru, Panama, other pacts
11-May-2007     IHT
Congressional Democratic leaders say they have forged new trade policy guidelines with the Bush administration that will elevate labor and environmental rights to key components in future free trade agreements.
Sides get closer to a deal on trade
11-May-2007     Washington Post
The Bush administration and Democratic leaders have struck a compromise that would insert stricter labor rules into future trade treaties, potentially lending fresh momentum to the global effort to promote free trade, sources briefed on the talks said yesterday.
Global trade talks stall as free trade agreements grow in Asia
3-May-2007     VOA
As the latest World Trade Organization round of talks loses momentum, bilateral and regional free trade agreements are mushrooming in Asia.
Preferential, not free trade deals
23-Apr-2007    
All multilateral trade rounds managed under the umbrella of the General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs (GATT), now the World Trade Organisation (WTO), are in crisis until a deal is done. The headlines are familiar and predictable, no trade round has ever failed or failed to disappoint.
US trade pacts at risk over business-labor clash
20-Apr-2007     Reuters
Bush administration efforts to reach a deal with the US Congress on trade were thrown into doubt on Thursday as US business and labor groups clashed over the core issue in the talks.
Weaving webs of influence: The United States, free trade agreements and dispute resolution
16-Apr-2007     Australia National University
Peter Drahos looks at the issue of dispute settlement in the gowing web of US bilateral free trade agreements, how this relates to the WTO's dispute settlement system and the implications for developing countries.
US trade winds no longer prevail
6-Apr-2007     IRC Americas Program
Lately, the US government's ability to use free trade agreements and trade preference bills as instruments of foreign and economic policy is dwindling.
US 2007 National Trade Estimate report on foreign trade barriers
3-Apr-2007     USTR
The 2007 National Trade Estimate Report on Foreign Trade Barriers (NTE) is the twenty-first in an annual series that surveys significant foreign barriers to US exports.
GOP may have to swallow tough labor terms for trade deals
28-Mar-2007    
As the Bush administration this week pursues a breakthrough with Democratic leaders aimed at gaining congressional approval for new trade agreements, the fate of the deals appears to hinge on whether Republicans are willing to accept tough labor conditions that they assert could boost the power of unions in the United States.
Break seen in logjam over trade
28-Mar-2007    
Prospects for Congressional approval of several pending trade pacts received a surprising lift on Tuesday when Democrats in the House proposed a series of revisions that won guarded praise from both organized labor and the Bush administration.