Trade liberalisation

Grain and thunder

Negotiations for a global trade deal run into last-minute problems

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Readers' comments




How can there be a discussion of Global Trade agreements (and "Balkanisation") without a mentioning of the largest trade agreements passed in the past 12 months:

1) EU-Canada free trade was successfully concluded. Though still to be ratified, that's probably a formality on both sides. That lays lays a fertile basis for a US-EU FTA which would integrate half the world economy, and would set a good precedent (standards, processes, etc) for third countries to join rapidly (lowering barriers faster than multilateral negotiations would ever have any hope of achieving). Even if all fails, there will be a gradually building pressure for a US-EU agreement once Canada develops NAFTA-EU arbitrage trade (thanks to relaxed country of origin rules).

On Thursday 22nd November, China and the EU launched negotiations for an investment protection and market access agreement

And both the German and Chinese press are enthusiastic about following that up with a full-scale free trade agreement:

3) EU-Japan free trade negotiations have just concluded a very successful 3rd round, with successful closing of every open negotiation chapter and bringing forward the schedule for conclusion. It's looking like EU-Japan will pass before the TPP. This negotiation is especially weird, since both Japan and the EU have implemented a series of "good faith" tariff cuts, and on Japan's side regulatory reforms, to begin applying the agreement long before the agreement has been concluded.

4) And there are many small incremental improvements that won't make much difference on global scale (lots of partial FTAs between the EU, US and small third countries).

5) Then there is a whole series of very sad events and missed opportunities:
- India continues to suffer from both a fragmented internal market, overbearing bureaucracy and a failure to open up to international trade even modestly. India's FTA negotiations (with the EU, with Canada) seem to be going nowhere.
- Brazil continues to chain itself to self-harming Argentina (Mercosur). Brazil is closed off to world markets. High import tariffs leave costs high and render Brazilian business uncompetitive on world markets (except for natural resources & agriculture).
- the Transpacific agreement seems stalled and rolling downhill backwards
- across the Southern Mediterranean, progress towards Euromed seems to have stopped.
- Ukraine, on the verge of bringing 46 million consumers into European and developed world markets, now seems to be drifting back into the death-grasp of the bear


with TTP and TTIP talks in earnest and shrouded in secrecy, they nonetheless give out the impression that WTO is being ditched or put in the back burner by developed economies, now that they can no longer call the shots at WTO at will.

c r williams

The article undervalues the aim of the WTO trade negotiations scheduled for Bali next week (Ministerial Conference #9, MC-9). No mention was made that the sole agricultural target being pursued is for cotton, with four African cotton countries trying to access global markets. They are currently locked out.

The third part of the trade deal, already finalised in Geneva and only going to Bali for signature, relates to the Least Developed Countries (LDC) package, which is not to be confused with the G33 proposal being put by India and mentioned in this TE article.

Working frenetically against signature of the WTO's Bali package is a group of about 100 corporate/ industry lobbyists, who are thinly disguised as non-government organisations. What constructive purpose could be served by advanced-economy dairy producers, except to defend their protectionist measures and markets?

Their industries are not listed on the MC-9 agenda, and their corporate websites show no support for Doha whilst actively promoting TTIP and TPP trade agreements. Theirs is a spoiling game, as is that of egg producers from advanced economies, and many others.

Fresh from their COP19 walkout in Warsaw last week, Europe has mobilised an Alternative Trade Mandate that is working to support WTO's efforts in Bali, and to expose the lobbyists. The days and weeks ahead promise some excitement, indeed.


there always are some divergence among differernt countries, eapecially the gap is much very big between developing countries and develpoed countries. threr is no doubt that every country is standing on his own position. No matter wheter thre is a Alliance or not, there problem are always exist.


"nothing focuses the mind like ..." a tactic to cause unbalanced decision making resulting in a pyramid scheme by a powerful monopolist. "Sustainable capitalism" cannot be guided ONLY by profit maximization or you get a Marxist prediction and unsustainable capitalism.

Yang Yuyan

It's hard for countries to reach an agreement on economy to some extent. This is why that WTO exists. But it is obvious that there are some hegemonism at WTO in the past years. As it says that the world of trade negotiations, alas, is forever full of obstacles.



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