International Trade And Globalisation Debates

With the agreement signed in Marrakesh on 14 April 1994 , between all the member of GATT, world trade has embarked on a new phase of its development. The European Union, negotiating as a bloc, endeavoured throughout to put its stamp on the negotiations and to have its interest prevail.

The module content provided by Colorado State University-Global Campus discusses regional trading agreements. It states that the tendency to use negotiation and organization of free trade had been undermined by regional trading agreements since the 1980s. Furthermore, CSU-Global argues that regional trade groups strengthen trade and the benefits of the groups involved. On the other hand, it undermines free trade by discouraging trade with members not part of the group.

Over the years, the World Trade Organization (WTO) has prided itself as the central element in the international economic management system across the world. This system incorporates other international bodies such as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund as well as a series of other regional trade regimes that are growing. Collectively, these structures provide a mechanism that addresses international economic interdependence as well enhancing economic interactions that offer the promise of maximizing social welfare across the globe. These aspects have been brought about due to the focus given in the post-Cold War era where international relations have evolved beyond a narrow emphasis on politico-military affairs.

Over the modern history of changing global leaderships, joint alliances have played a tremendous role in defining new world orders. In 1944, at Bretton Woods, New Hampshire - 44 nations came together to sign the world 's biggest financial regulation to date: the Bretton Woods Agreement. We saw a shift of global power and an era of constructive peace since, yet it came at a heavy economic cost in the failure of the dollar and the breakdown of the system shortly after. Today, the U.S. is reaching out to its Asian allies through the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a free trade agreement that aims to lift tariffs and expand trade relationships between nations accounting for 40% of global trade, in hopes of consolidating its security interests in the world 's fastest-growing region. It promises American businesses and workers a new level of prosperity by requiring member nations to follow U.S. IP best practices and American trade values. The TPP should not be ratified, however, as it is primarily negotiated by corporate lobbyists for their profit-driven interests. It contains over-optimistic fallacies that communicate unsupported economic forecasts amid America 's growing middle-class crisis. It would hurt the U.S. economy hard with questionable political benefits, and previous disappointment with the U.S.-Korea trade agreement as well as the lack of negotiation transparency points to another bureaucracy-filled trade agreement that our future political leaders should not pass.

A regional trading bloc is an intergovernmental agreement or treaty among a group of countries, acting together for a common purpose of removing or reducing trade barriers of trading between the participating nations. It is a form of economic integration, creating high level of globalization and regionalisation. Economic integration is the integration of economies on different aspects of trade and thus, reduction of its barriers among the countries. World trade is being shaped by economic integration, whose level defines the degree and nature of economic relationship among countries.

Rodrik describes an impossible trilemma of the global economy, torn between hyperglobalization, the nation-state and democratic politics. Rodrik prefers the sacrifice of hyperglobalization rather than that of the other two, placing particular emphasis on national soverignty.1 He desires to retain the nation-state as an important institution in economic affairs on the basis that too much diversity exists globally, and it is essentially impossible to reconcile different values. The overly homogenizing effect of the WTO, and its assumption of powers traditionally afforded to the state apparatus have

Free trade agreements create a free flow of goods, services, investment and people.The Doha Development round was a multilateral trade agreement between the member countries of WTO. The primary objective of the Doha round was to provide opportunities to developing countries into the world trading system; it covered about twenty areas of trade, market access for non-agricultural products and some intellectual property issues. However, even after sincere efforts, evidence suggests that developing countries did not gain much from Doha development round of tariff negotiation. This paper analyses the World Trading systems, Free Trade and Doha Round of multilateral trade negotiation.

Rising levels of globalization in modern times has led to a growing interdependence of countries around the world and increase in trade links between them (Johnson and Turner, 2010, p. 21). This in turn has created popular discourse on the idea of a global economy arising out of free-trade instead of country specific economies, and consideration of global costs of protectionism.

Some authors even argue that TTIP goes beyond a free trade agreement, it aims “at repositioning the US and European economies for a more diffuse world of intensified global competition”. That would be the same line of thought of Mr Peter von Ham , a senior research fellow at the Dutch Clingedael Institute, that stated that TTIP could “be a game changer”, both politically and economically: “the rise of China (and other Asian countries) combined with the relative decline of the US and economic malaise of the Eurozone, is spurring the transatlantic West to use its combined economic and political preponderance to write new global trade rules reflecting its economic principles (rules-based market economy) and political values (liberal democracy). TTIP is an essential component of this new strategy”. The same opinion is shared by Antonio Lecea , who considers that “the role of TTIP is therefore to pioneer global rule-making solutions that can later be applied more widely – especially as they will already be operating in 40% of the world economy”. There is a common trend in both opinions, they both corroborate the thesis that TTIP could become the trend setter for new free trade agreements. And not only it would define the new standards

The EU is widely regarded as a trade power in the current international arena. The trade policy has been a core component of the EU’s growth strategies to enhance international competitiveness by internal development, resulted from the widened and deepened regional integration (Young, 2011: 719). Assimilating neo-liberalist idea to the trade policy has promoted liberalising goods and service trades and contributed to enhancement of competitiveness in the global markets; the EU achieved the largest market in the world in 2005 (Dee and Mortensen, 2014: 3; Young, 2011: 721). Moreover, in international trade, GATT/WTO has promoted multilateral negotiations. Until Uruguay Round, the main discussion was tariff reduction in industrial goods; however, once Uruguay Round approached wider range of issues, legislation of multilateral trade rules has been more important for the WTO members and other actors (Young, 2011: 716). Under this condition, the EU has promoted its competitiveness in the global market with internal development resulted from its territorial enlargement and the institutional system reforms; the EU has adjusted the trade policy against external actors in response to a changing world (ibid: 719). This paper examines how the EU’s external trade policy has changed.

The current international system is characterized by growth in globalization hence regional integration is becoming a common phenomenon in most parts of the world. As a result of states becoming more interconnected, most of them have opted for regional integration so as to enhance trade between states thus boosting economies of the states as well as the regions as a whole. Besides free trade, regional integration has seen to it the elimination of trade barriers, free movement of goods and people across borders, regional co-operation in issues to do with peace and security within the regions among various other benefits of regional integration. One of the regions that has grown as a result of regional integration is the European Union (EU), which is an economic and political partnership composed of 28 European countries. This paper will focus on the EU and give a theoretical analysis of the Brexit while giving lessons of integration and liberalization based on the Brexit.

Earlier, I mentioned the unilateral consequences of trade protection policies between cooperating nations or economies. Now let us look at the multilateral effects that this can pose. Research shows that membership in trade organizations like the World Trade Organization (WTO) haven't and will not play a significant effect on trade. In the early 90s, Africa signaled a very important shift in its developmental strategy. This shift was from the promotion of the continent's exports while controlling imports, to a more open view on tariff liberalization . This paradigm shift, can mostly be seen in the commitment South Africa showed in General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade GATT (the predecessor to the WTO). Within the GATT, South Africa agreed

The view of Western governments, voiced by Fred Bergsten , saw this non-discriminatory free trade principle as being undesirable as it did not enable APEC any leverage in global trade negotiations, opting instead for more definitive commitments. Whereas East Asian governments advocated in favour of a less radical approach, one that had more flexibility “both in terms of what was implied by trade and investment liberalisation and the means by which it was to be realised.” (Dent, 2008:126).

The issue of globalisation is multifaceted and therefore a short overview is provided. The structure will lead through definitions of

Literature on the first category takes a motivational approach to explain trade agreements, emphasizing countries’ interests behind their settlement. Secondly, the literature focuses on the political settings and relations affecting trade agreements, which include domestic politics and the involvement of a country in other trade agreements. Lastly, the literature discusses the level of economic development of the countries involved and its implications to trade agreements.