Free Trade Agreements (Concise Hornbook Series)

Free trade agreements (FTAs) now dominate global trade. This dominance is likely to continue for many years on every continent. Already, well over half of all international trade takes place under FTAs.

Free Trade Agreements 2d examines the origins of free trade agreements (FTAs) and customs unions (CUs) under Article 24 of the GATT. Article 24 permits but attempts to regulate their creation, an effort that failed early on. A sleeping giant for decades, FTAs were re-awakened by the path-breaking Canada-U.S. FTA of 1989. In 1994, NAFTA triggered an onslaught of diverse and complex FTAs around the globe, in time largely overwhelming the impact of the establishment of the World Trade Organization in 1995.

The hostility of President Trump to existing trade agreements like the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP-12), the WTO, the EU, the U.S.-Korea FTA, and NAFTA caused the number of FTAs to increase. America’s trade partners and competitors rushed to secure trade deals not involving the USA. TPP-11, the Japan-EU FTA, the expanded Mexico-EU FTA, the MERCOSUR-EU FTA, and the China-driven Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP 2020) in Asia provide excellent examples. President Trump ultimately accepted the re-negotiation of NAFTA, resulting in the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), which took effect July 1, 2021. The completion of BREXIT in 2020 caused the UK to seek and obtain dozens of FTA agreements with EU FTA partners and independently with Australia and others. President Biden has shown little interest in new U.S. FTAs, not even with Britain.

All of this, and more, is covered in this book. Designed for a global audience, students, professors, lawyers, government officials and people in business interested in the law, opportunities, and economics of free trade agreements will find it useful.

Active links in the e-book and downloadable versions of this Concise Hornbook are provided throughout.