Free Trade Agreements and US Trade Policy: A Comparative Analysis of US Initiatives in Latin America, the Asia-Pacific Region, and the Middle East and North Africa

Abstract

Notes

© Institute for International Economics, 2006. All right reserved. The author benefited from insightful comments by Richard Feinberg and Paolo Guerrieri on an earlier draft. He also thanks Yee Wong for Compiling the tables for this article. This reserch was funding in part by the Ahlers Center for International Business at the University of San Diego.

¹For a discussion of these proposals, see, for example, Schott, 1989; Snape, 1986; and USITC, 1989.

²Many of these countries were deemed to be unsuitable US partners, for two reasons: they were not signatories to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT); and they participated actively in the Arab boycott of Israel.

³See Bergsten, 1996 for an early elaboration of this concept.

⁴See his commencement address at the University of South Carolina, May 9, 2003. This statement preceded the announcement of a new Middle East trade initiative that emphasized US efforts to promote democracy in postwar Iraq.

⁵The following discussion draws on analysis in Schott (2004, chap. 13).

⁶See Inside US Trade, May 9, 2003, for a report on Zoellick's remarks to the Institute for International Economics conference on FTAs and US trade policy.

⁷For a summary of the US BIT program, see US Department of State (2003).

⁸The Trade Act of 2002 contains an extensive list of US trade negotiating objectives, encompassing “traditional” issues like tariffs and quotas as well as trade-related policies on intellectual property, labor, and the environment.

⁹The ILO standards cover freedom of association, abolition of forced and child labor, and nondiscrimination. See Elliott (2004).

¹⁰However, proposals by both businessmen and legislators in South Korea and the United States suggest that a South Korea-US FTA might be feasible if both sides gave weight to the political benefits of the accord and were able to manage reforms in sensitive sectors like agriculture, textiles, and automobiles (Choi and Schott, 2001).

Snape, R. H. 1986. “Should Australia seek a trade agreement with the United States?” Government of Australia, Economic Planning Advisory Council, Discussion Paper no. 86/01. June

United States Department of State. 2003. “U.S. Bilateral Investment Treaty Program.” Fact Sheet, Bureau of Economics and Business Affairs, July 1

United States International Trade Commission (USITC). 1989. “The Pros and Cons of Entering into Negotiations on Free Trade Area Agreements with Taiwan, The Republic of Korea, and ASEAN, or the Pacific Rim Region in General.” USITC Publication 2166

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jeffrey J. Schott

Jeffrey J. Schott is a Senior Fellow at the Institute for International Economics in Washington, DC.