:: 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

USTR Lighthizer says bilateral trade pacts conflict with multilateral trading system

10-Jul-2020 Reuters

US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer said the world needed either a multilateral system to govern global trade or a series of bilateral agreements, but the two were in conflict with each other.

Trade development agreement between Venezuela and Turkey becomes effective August 21

8-Jul-2020 MercoPress

A new trade deal between Turkey and Venezuela, officially titled “Trade Development Agreement,” will enter into force on August 21.

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.