FREE TRADE IN AMERICAS: IS IT VIABLE? (original) (raw)

Mercosur and the Creation of the Free Trade Area of the Americas

Summary and examination of negotiations aimed at the creation of the Free Trade Area of the Americas, with special attention to the positions of Mercosur countries. The objective is to analyze the economic incentives, on the social and on the private level, of the different alternatives for trade liberalization. That is to say, information is processed to deeply understand the different negotiation scenarios, the bilateral as against the plurilateral alternative, considering aggregated as well as particular national interests in each country/region. The integration process involves many subjects (the harmonization of domestic policies on competition, environmental and labor standards, intellectual property, and so on) and sectors (now including services). Although many of these issues are mentioned and discussed, the focus here is on the changes in market access associated with the proposed liberalization of the trade opening for goods, the area in which MERCOSUR has its clearest interest.

A Free Trade Area of the Americas in 2005?

International Affairs, 1998

The two main forces shaping the world economy in the s seem to be regionalization and globalization. Despite the fact that they appear to move it in opposite directions-the former towards regional concentration of trade and investment and the latter towards a global economy-they are in fact complementary forces. It becomes apparent why this is the case if one looks at the growth of trade. Since the end of the Second World War, global trade has been growing significantly faster than global output.At the same time, intra-regional trade, that is, the trade that a given country conducts in goods and services with its regional partners, has also been increasing in most regions of the world. Another trend that is fostering the processes of regionalization and globalization is the changes that are taking place in the rules governing world trade.The international community appears to be moving slowly but steadily towards free trade.  In recent decades, unilateral, bilateral and multilateral initiatives have been taken to open markets. At the multilateral level, liberalization of trade took place through several rounds of talks under the aegis of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), but barriers remain on the way towards a free trade world. Meanwhile, since the mid-s, a proliferation of initiatives to promote regional economic integration have been taken. Economic integration may take five different forms, in progressive order of complexity: preferential trade agreements; free trade areas; customs unions; common markets; and economic unions.  Economists have been arguing for decades over the advantages of trade agreements, focusing on three major aspects: first, the welfare implications-the debate on trade creation versus trade diversion; second, the role of geographical proximity in creating 'natural' or 'supernatural' regions; and third, whether regional trade agreements might contribute to the ultimate goal of a free trade world.  

NAFTA and Beyond:Challenges in Free Trade

Forum Empresarial, 2004

The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) increasingly looks like a "one shot" deal with little of the ongoing deepening of economic relationship expected at the time of its negotiation and no provisions for ongoing negotiations. As a result, alternative-trading arrangements may provide an opportunity to move the North American Trade agenda forward. The Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) is one alternative, however, it is an extremely ambitious undertaking bringing together a large number of very divergent economies in terms of size, stage of economic development, economic performance and economic philosophy. This increases the complexity of negotiations and the probability of failure. The paper outlines the major areas where negotiations are likely to be difficult and provides suggestions regarding what has been learned from the NAFTA experience that is relevant to the FTAA.

Free Trade Agreements in South America

2019

Objective: Free Trade Agreements (FTA) have recently drawn public attention due to political populism, alter-globalisation, and tendencies to redefine economic ties, together with the stereotype of mismatching social perception and so-called ‘expert knowledge’. Confronting this stereotype may contribute to better understanding of FTA controversies and identify possible vulnerability sources at the policy implementation level. Research Design & Methods: To analyse FTA impact, meta-analysis of the literature research results was performed using the sample of eight Spanish language papers. We included models in which natural logarithm of a trade measure was regressed on FTA dummy variable with other explanatory variables following Viechtbauer (2010). Findings: With FTA dummy variable increased trade can have its sources both in trade creation and trade diversion. Also, the endogeneity issue might result in overestimation of the effect, as countries that trade more are more likely to es...

21 - The SLEPT Aspects of the Free Trade Area of the Americas.pdf

The Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) attempts to become one of the most far reaching integration agreements in world's history. It will eventually eliminate all barriers to trade and investments and create a uniformed sense of democracy in the region. The stakes are high in terms of market size, trade volume, and overall output. The FTAA will not benefit its country members equally. A social, legal, economic, political and technological framework of analysis suggests the FTAA will greatly benefit the largest economies while severely hindering smaller ones. Furthermore, recent ascendancy of a political left among the region signals the FTAA may still remain conjectural.

From NAFTA to hemisphere free trade

The Columbia Journal of World Business, 1994

Limiting NAFTA to only the United States, Canada and Mexico will have immediate and adverse effects on the economies of the Caribbean Basin and Latin America. The diversion of investment and trade alone will result in the shrinking of these economies which have been growing steadily for the last few decades. Bernal discusses the advantages of expanding NAFTA to include these overlooked regions and constructs a transparent and fair process by which these countries of diverse economic development could obtain accession.