Commercial treaty Commercial treaty A commercial treaty is a formal agreement between states for the purpose of establishing mutual rights and regulating conditions of trade. It is a bilateral act whereby definite arrangements are entered into by each contracting party towards the other—not mere concessions. For example, the Methuen Treaty was a commercial treaty between Portugal and England. Another example, between the close of the Napoleonic wars of 1815 and the year 1860, the tariff system of Great Britain was changed from elaborate protection to practically complete free trade. An attempt had indeed been made in 1786 to modify the rigidly protective
Treaty of Amity and Commerce (United States–France) their lands in the Americas after the French and Indian War. As a result, John Adams began drafting conditions for a possible commercial treaty between France and the future independent colonies of the United States, which declined the presence of French troops and any aspect of French authority in colonial affairs. On September 25 the Continental Congress ordered commissioners, led by Benjamin Franklin, to seek a treaty with France based upon Adams's draft treaty that had later been formalized into a Model Treaty which sought the establishment of reciprocal trade relations with France but declined to mention any possible military