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Books > Business & Economics > Economics > International economics > International trade > Trade agreements & tariffs
The book deals with both the short and the long-run effects of the Uruguay Round: the reduction in the obstacles to trade, the enlargement of the multilateral system, the new institutional framework and the balance between regionalism and multilateralism in world trade relations. Its conclusions are based on theory, political economy and empirical analysis.
The Alpha Barrier was officially featured at a Roundtable discussion facilitated by the National Defense University, Washington D.C. on April 7, 2010. On that occasion, strategic planners, policy personnel and decision makers representative of the highest levels of government discussed and offered perspectives on the arguments put forward in the book. Within 2 days of the Roundtable, two strategically timed and calibrated visits were launched to countries that were identified in the publication as key geo-strategic players that should be of immediate concern to the United States, 1. The visit of Defence Secretary Robert Gates in April. The visit of Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton in June The successive itineraries were specifically intended to bolster and consolidate accords in the area of defense cooperation, to reaffirm the commitment of the Obama administration to the promotion of cooperation and partnership and to render tangible support for the Caribbean Basin Security Initiative in the form of a $73 million Congressional budgetary allocation. The latter would fuel a collective regional offensive against the trafficking of drugs and firearms and effectively stymie the cross-border flows of illicit proceeds derived from the drug trade. These high-profiled visits have lent salience and relevancy to the arguments advanced in The Alpha Barrier...that there is a political imperative for the Obama administration to reinvigorate relationships between the United States and specific players in the south and thereby redress the legacy of diffused interest that typified the post 9/11 era. This compels the application of a new brand of statecraft that is compatible with a drastically altered strategic environment. Key components of this statecraft must necessarily be multilateralism and consensual decision making. The selective delivery of aid packages is merely a first step. The Alpha Barrier is an insightful book that touches on the above topics in detail, and offers clear-minded discussion on these very important issues.
In today's global economy, NAFTA continues to present unprecedented opportunities for companies in cross-border commerce. 'Uniting North American Business: NAFTA Best Practices' focuses on best business practices and lessons learned in the years since the NAFTA agreement was first signed, and their impact on both the economy and society. 'Uniting North American Business' provides you with the skills and competencies necessary to become more effective business managers and citizens in NAFTA countries by considering: * What is the scope of the NAFTA agreement itself?* What are some of the positive benefits of NAFTA?* What is really causing job loss attributed to NAFTA?* What should we know about Canada, the United States, and Mexico to better understand the culture and management philosophies of our partners?* What will society look like if current trends continue?
Despite the Doha declaration of November 2001, the failure to start a new round of global trade negotiations at Seattle in December 1999 and the hostility of protesters to the trade liberalization process and growing global economic and social disparities was a wake-up call for the World Trade Organisation (WTO). The ambitious goal of this ground-breaking book is to identify the strengths and weaknesses of liberalized world trade, in particular in the agricultural sector, and to investigate to what extent the current WTO agreements provide the necessary fail-safe devices to react to trade-related negative impacts on sustainability, environmental protection and food security. The background and interrelationship between the WTO, the tenets of sustainable development and the unique features of the agriculture and forestry sectors are explored, and conclusions regarding the deficits of the world trade system and its conflicts with basic societal goals - such as sustainability - are drawn. Agriculture and forestry have a particular affinity with what the authors call "strong sustainability" and are to be among the major agenda items in forthcoming WTO negotiations. The book proposes that sustainable agricultural production techniques such as integrated and organic farming provide a series of related services to community and environment which could be severely prejudiced by wholesale trade liberalization and the imposition of the large-scale production methods of the mega-trade giants of the USA and Europe. And yet the concept of sustainability is referred to only tangentially in the existing WTO agenda. The WTO, Agriculture and Sustainable Development argues that, without a formal recognition of this failing, the premise that free trade is inherently advantageous for all countries is a falsehood. Further, unfettered liberalization is unsustainable and a social and environmental multilateral framework must be agreed to reinterpret or adapt a host of WTO regulations that are at odds with sustainable development. The core problem is that, under the current system, import duties can only be differentiated by direct goods and services and not by their means of production - sustainable or otherwise. Therefore, a range of environmental policy measures in the agricultural sector, such as the consideration of product life-cycles, the internalization of external costs and a coupling of trade liberalization with ecological obligations are proposed by the authors. In addition, they argue that unsustainable economic short-termism must be curbed and the use of the stick of trade sanctions and the carrot of financial benefits for good environmental performance be permitted to promote sustainable agricultural practices. This book will contribute greatly in addressing the lack of basic theoretical arguments at the intersection between trade and sustainable development - a failing that has already been bemoaned by trade policy-makers. It is highly recommended reading for all those involved or interested in the WTO negotiations, whether from multilateral organizations, governments, industry or civil society.
Winner of the 2021 Lionel Gelber Prize: A provocative look at how today's trade conflicts are caused by governments promoting the interests of elites at the expense of workers "The authors weave a complex tapestry of monetary, fiscal and social policies through history and offer opinions about what went right and what went wrong . . . Worth reading for their insights into the history of trade and finance."-George Melloan, Wall Street Journal "This is a very important book."-Martin Wolf, Financial Times Trade disputes are usually understood as conflicts between countries with competing national interests, but as Matthew C. Klein and Michael Pettis show, they are often the unexpected result of domestic political choices to serve the interests of the rich at the expense of workers and ordinary retirees. Klein and Pettis trace the origins of today's trade wars to decisions made by politicians and business leaders in China, Europe, and the United States over the past thirty years. Across the world, the rich have prospered while workers can no longer afford to buy what they produce, have lost their jobs, or have been forced into higher levels of debt. In this thought-provoking challenge to mainstream views, the authors provide a cohesive narrative that shows how the class wars of rising inequality are a threat to the global economy and international peace-and what we can do about it. Longlisted for the 2020 Financial Times & McKinsey Business Book of the Year Award and named a Best Business Book of 2020 by Strategy + Business
Transforming NATO: New Allies, Missions, and Capabilities, by Ivan Dinev Ivanov, examines the three dimensions of NATO s transformation since the end of the Cold War: the addition of a dozen new allies; the undertaking of new missions such as peacekeeping, crisis response, and stabilization; and the development of new capabilities to implement these missions. The book explains these processes through two mutually reinforcing frameworks: club goods theory and the concept of complementarities. NATO can be viewed as a diverse, heterogeneous club of nations providing collective defense to its members, who, in turn, combine their military resources in a way that enables them to optimize the Alliance s capabilities needed for overseas operations. Transforming NATO makes a number of theoretical contributions. First, it offers new insights into understanding how heterogeneous clubs operate. Second, it introduces a novel concept, that of complementarities. Finally, it re-evaluates the relevance of club goods theory as a framework for studying contemporary international security. These conceptual foundations apply to areas well beyond NATO. They provide useful insights into understanding the operation of transatlantic relations, alliance politics, and a broader set of international coalitions and partnerships. This update in April 2013 covers new developments related to NATO s transformation after this book was originally published: http: //homepages.uc.edu/ ivanovid/pdfs/book_update.pdf"
The Post-Uruguay Round era has seen a proliferation of regional preferential trade agreements (PTAs), as well as progressive multilateral trade liberalization initiatives. This has stimulated theoretical discussion on whether the policy of pursuing PTAs will have a malign or a benign impact on multilateralism. In the former case, proliferation of PTAs may increase protection in global trade due to trade diversion effects, thereby creating impediments to the multilateral freeing of global trade. In the latter case, the expansion of PTA membership could ultimately lead to non-discriminatory global free trade. At the core of this discussion two issues are at stage: what determines the expansion of PTA membership and how to bring order into the architecture of the world trading system. While those questions are mainly studied from a specialist perspective in the literature, this volume offers a comprehensive view on this topic. In Multilateralism and Regionalism in the Post-Uruguay Round Era: What Role for the EU? international experts: Explain the reasons for the concurrent appearance of regionalism and multilateralism in the Post-Uruguay Round era; Shed light on the motives of both the two economic superpowers (the United States and the EU) and the developing countries for pursuing PTAs; Confront growing preferential regionalism with the academic consensus on the superiority of multilateralism; Discuss the future of the PTAs; Assess the access of the EU market for the products of LDCs; Offer a better understanding of the experience of African, Latin American and Asian countries concerning access to the EU market for their products; and Discuss the possibilities of disciplining the PTAroute towards global free trade within the WTO framework.
A New York Times Bestseller! 2019 was the last great year for the world economy. For generations, everything has been getting faster, better, and cheaper. Finally, we reached the point that almost anything you could ever want could be sent to your home within days - even hours - of when you decided you wanted it. America made that happen, but now America has lost interest in keeping it going. Globe-spanning supply chains are only possible with the protection of the U.S. Navy. The American dollar underpins internationalized energy and financial markets. Complex, innovative industries were created to satisfy American consumers. American security policy forced warring nations to lay down their arms. Billions of people have been fed and educated as the American-led trade system spread across the globe. All of this was artificial. All this was temporary. All this is ending. In The End of the World is Just the Beginning, author and geopolitical strategist Peter Zeihan maps out the next world: a world where countries or regions will have no choice but to make their own goods, grow their own food, secure their own energy, fight their own battles, and do it all with populations that are both shrinking and aging. The list of countries that make it all work is smaller than you think. Which means everything about our interconnected world - from how we manufacture products, to how we grow food, to how we keep the lights on, to how we shuttle stuff about, to how we pay for it all - is about to change. A world ending. A world beginning. Zeihan brings readers along for an illuminating (and a bit terrifying) ride packed with foresight, wit, and his trademark irreverence.
After an exploration of the experience gained by former central and eastern European countries in the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, Peter Naray gives an analysis of the Russian economic and social crisis and comes to the conclusion that this crisis is responsible for the delay of Russia's accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO). The author criticizes the approach taken in Russian reforms because the country's historical legacy (weak legal system, underdeveloped political and economic institutions etc.) was neglected. The book describes the steps made by Russia towards WTO membership underlining the present and expected difficulties. It warns against a fundamentalist approach by the members of the WTO that may result in Russia's isolation in political and economic matters that would represent a danger to the whole world.
Contemporary trade policy is increasingly framed in geo-strategic terms. But how much of that rhetoric is reflected in actual policy choices by the EU or its trading partners? This book provides a first systematic study of the broader international context in which EU trade agreements are conceived, negotiated, and designed. Building on a refined conceptualisation of geo-economics, the book develops a cogent framework that combines insights from scholarship on the design of free trade agreements with ideas from foreign policy analysis. Empirically, the analysis focuses on the relations between the EU and the Asia-Pacific. Following the United States' pivot to Asia and the EU's Global Europe strategy, China's backyard has become the main arena in which global powers' geo-economic strategies overlap. Building on a series of case-studies, combining the perspectives from the EU and its trading partners, the book shows that the rhetoric of geo-economic competition is yet to catch up with the actual negotiation and design of free trade agreements. This volume will be of great interest to scholars, students and practitioners who want to gain a holistic understanding of contemporary trade negotiations.
Europe's trade policies matter in global politics. Despite the recent focus on Brazil, India, and particularly China, the European Union remains the world's largest market and trader. Despite its recent economic troubles, Europe remains in a powerful position to shape how globalization is governed. We know surprisingly little about how its trade policy is actually made, because previous works have focused on individual trade policy decisions to the detriment of the 'big picture' of the Union as a trade power. Parochial Global Europe argues that trade policy is composed of multiple, distinct policies. Each presents a distinctive constellation of mobilized societal preferences, pattern of political institutions, and range of government preferences. The balance of economic power between the EU and its trade partner(s) affects the stakes involved. Together these four factors define trade policy sub-systems, which help explain both the EU's objectives and whether it realizes them. The authors advance this argument by analysing the EU's role in the demise of the Doha Round, its use of anti-dumping and pursuit of market access, the trade effects of its single market programme and efforts at regulatory diplomacy, including the launch of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership negotiations. Parochial Global Europe thus focuses centrally on modern, 21st century trade policy. It also sheds light on the EU as a global actor by analysing its use of trade policy as a tool of foreign policy from promoting development, to encouraging human rights and environmental protection, to punishing security threats.
All is not well in the World Trade Organization. Does a global
economy require global institutions? One possible alternative is
interregionalism: economic integration between two distinct
regions. This book explores the logic of interregionalism by
focusing on the European Union, which has pursued agreements with
Latin America, East Asia, and the Southern Mediterranean, among
others. Why has the EU pursued this strategy? Based on a novel
theoretical framework, the authors in this book explore EU
interregionalism to provide us with insight into this new emerging
face of the international political economy.
The Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) is one of the longest established and more controversial of the common policies of the EC. It deals principally with the management of fishery resources, relations between the EC and third States in fisheries matters, the marketing of and trade in fishery products, financial assistance to the fisheries sector, and aquaculture. However, the CFP is not just a matter for those with an economic interest in fisheries. It also raises many issues of more general concern, such as the capacity of the EC and its Member States to manage important natural resources sustainably, the impact of fishing on the wider marine environment, and relations between developed and developing States. This book addresses the CFP from a legal perspective. It provides a detailed account of the very large body of EC law comprising the CFP, and draws on the European Commission's associated documents to aid interpretation and add context. As a result, the book will be of value to anyone wanting knowledge of the law of the CFP. Although not addressing the Commission's 2009 Green Paper on reform of the CFP, the book should provide a useful reference point against which to view the reform of parts of the CFP that is anticipated to take place over the next few years.
The Political Economy of the World Trading System is a
comprehensive textbook account of the economics, institutional
mechanics and politics of the world trading system. This third
edition has been expanded and updated to cover developments in the
World Trade Organisation (WTO) since its formation, including the
Doha Round, presenting the essentials of trade negotiations and the
WTO's rules and disciplines.
Green Trade Agreements reviews and analyses the environmental provisions that have become an important characteristic of the growing number of bilateral and regional free trade agreements. This book examines the range of approaches to these environmental provisions, evaluates their effectiveness and suggests potential improvements to the process.
This book gathers a selection of peer-reviewed chapters reflecting on the Australia-European Union Free Trade Agreement (AEUFTA). Since 18 June 2018, ten rounds of negotiations for a AEUFTA have been held in a constructive atmosphere, showing a shared commitment to move forward with this ambitious and comprehensive agreement. After a lengthy and arduous process interrupted by the United Kingdom's withdrawal from the European Union (EU), the United States' hesitations regarding the EU's global strategy and the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, the negotiations between Australia and the European Union finally appear to be nearing completion. In challenging times, both parties share a commitment to a positive trade agenda, and to the idea that good trade agreements benefit both sides by boosting jobs, growth and investment. This book explores the challenges, achievements and missed opportunities in the AEUFTA negotiation process, and examines current legal and political relations between the EU, its Member States and Australia. Furthermore, it examines in detail a wide and diverse range of negotiated areas, including digital trade, services, intellectual property rules, trade remedies and investment screening, as well as dispute settlement mechanisms. Lastly, it sheds light on the likely nature of future commercial relations between Australia and the EU. Written by a team of respected authors from leading institutions in both Australia and Europe, the book provides a valuable, interdisciplinary analysis of the AEUFTA.
The volume is partitioned into five sub areas, addressing the process of dispute resolution and appeal under the DSU of the WTO; politics and disputes between sovereign nations; power inequities in access to the DSU; specific categories of disputes, such as in agriculture and in intellectual property; and issues pertaining to compliance, enforcement and remedies. In addition to the interdisciplinary focus, this volume showcases the thoughts of both established and emerging scholars, whilst highlighting perspectives from many different countries and regions.
This book argues that investor risk in emerging markets hinges on the company a country keeps. When a country signs on to an economic agreement with states that are widely known to be stable, it looks less risky. Conversely, when a country joins a group with more unstable members, it looks more risky. Investors use the company a country keeps as a heuristic in evaluating that country's willingness to honor its sovereign debt obligations. This has important implications for the study of international cooperation as well as of sovereign risk and credibility at the domestic level.
This book investigates the politics of transatlantic trade, specifically the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership negotiations. Using a novel approach, the authors analyze the rhetorical choices made by opponents and supporters of an agreement, and the logical behind their arguments. Opponents used emotive frames and strategically chosen issues to increase public opposition to the negotiations; supporters countered, but also accommodated, parts of opponents' rhetoric in hopes of quelling discontent. The study also highlights the resulting changes to EU trade policy, thus contributing to the literatures on trade policy, politicization, and rhetorical analysis.
The trading relationship between the United States and China, though now robust, was a recent and hardly inevitable development. Political animosity stemming from the Korean War and America's subsequent strategic embargo of China broke off economic and cultural ties. Following two decades of China's international isolation, as the United States sought to realign the geopolitical order in the 1970s, Washington began to engineer a restoration of its relationship with China. Diplomatic historians have carefully documented the formal and governmental intrigues of Nixon, Kissinger, Mao, and Zhou Enlai. As this book shows, a vigorous reconstruction of bilateral ties was unfolding simultaneously at the level of informal diplomacy, especially in the realm of US-China trade. Central to understanding the renewal of bilateral commerce is the National Council for United States-China Trade, an organization that, although nongovernmental, was established in 1973 with Washington's encouragement and oversight. The Council organized major American corporations not only to engage in commercial exchanges with China, but also to function as a diplomatic backchannel between Washington and Beijing before the two nations restored formal relations in 1979. Using the Council to historicize the entangling of the American and Chinese economies, Forgotten Vanguard not only reveals globalization's contingent path but also exposes the hidden importance of informal trade diplomacy in building the modern US-China relationship. This book will appeal to those with an interest in Cold War history, international relations, and the history of American diplomacy, with particular emphases on informal diplomacy and the modern history of the US-China economic relationship.
Was the 1993 North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) designed as a definitive trade agreement, or as a stepping stone? This book reviews NAFTA's performances on trade, investment, intellectual property rights, dispute-settlement, as well as environmental and labor side-agreements within a theoretical construct.
This is the most in-depth study of the economic partnership between
the European Union and the CARIFORUM countries, a group of fifteen
small developing economies in the Caribbean. The CARIFORUM-EU
Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) is the first trade agreement
of its kind, as it is a new type of WTO-compatible trade agreement
between a group of developed countries and a group of developing
countries. As a principal negotiator for CARIFORUM, Bernal's
qualifications allow him to provide a unique perspective on the
increasingly important topic of trade and economic development in
the midst of globalization.
We need a world trade organization. We just don't need the one that we have. By pitching unequally matched states together in chaotic bouts of negotiating the global trade governance of today offers - and has consistently offered - developed countries more of the economic opportunities they already have and developing countries very little of what they desperately need. This is an unsustainable state of affairs to which the blockages in the Doha round provide ample testimony. So far only piecemeal solutions have been offered to refine this flawed system. Radical proposals that seek to fundamentally alter trade governance or reorient its purposes around more socially progressive and egalitarian goals are thin on the ground. Yet we eschew deeper reform at our peril. In What's Wrong with the World Trade Organization and How to Fix It Rorden Wilkinson argues that without global institutions fit for purpose, we cannot hope for the kind of fine global economic management that can put an end to major crises or promote development-for-all. Charting a different path he shows how the WTO can be transformed into an institution and a form of trade governance that fulfils its real potential and serves the needs of all. |
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