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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, Japanese bosses call for ambitious trade pact
20-Jan-2007     The News International
Powerful US and Japanese business leaders called Friday for a free-trade agreement to link the world's two largest economies.
Europe (re)joins the FTA bandwagon
13-Jan-2007     AEI
A view on the similarities and differences between the US and the EU's FTA strategies.
Happily ever AAFTA
10-Jan-2007     TATT
This year President Bush and the Democratic-led Congress should launch a new Association of American Free Trade Agreements (AAFTA), writes Robert Zoellick in the Wall Street Journal.
Six countries could lose US trade benefits: USTR
21-Dec-2006     Reuters
Six countries -- including Brazil, India and Venezuela -- could lose duty-free access to the US market for some of their key exports under a revamped U.S. trade program signed into law on Wednesday by President George W Bush, US trade officials said.
The new 'Global Europe' strategy of the EU: Serving corporations worldwide and at home
3-Dec-2006    
Alert to European civil society groups, trade unions and social movements from the Seattle to Brussels Network
Slowing the free-trade bulldozer
1-Dec-2006     TomPaine
Long a bipartisan crusade in Washington, “free trade” is now set to face some overdue opposition. And there's no better time to start the rumble than in the lame duck session of Congress.
Bilateral trade agreements and the world trading system
22-Nov-2006    
Bilateral Trade Agreements (BTAs) have been proliferating. Why are they so popular? What are their impacts on multilateralism and the world trading system? This papers attempts to answer these questions.
Transcript: Susan Schwab interview
18-Nov-2006     FT
Susan Schwab, US trade representative, on the prospects for turning the 21 economies of Apec into a Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific (FTAAP); current talks about bilateral trade deals in Asia; the expiration in June next year of trade promotion authority (TPA); and the expected signing of a bilateral trade agreement between the US and Russia.
Democrats to focus trade policy on US jobs and workers
18-Nov-2006     The Mercury News
The American worker, not Corporate America, will be the central focus of US trade policy as far as the new Democratic majority of Congress is concerned.
Slow track: Democratic gains raise roadblocks to free-trade push
12-Nov-2006     Wall Street Journal
The Democrats' sweep of Congress is set to deliver a blow to President Bush's free-trade ambitions and could hamper impending trade deals both big and small.