The United States And The New Regionalism Bilateralism

Current U.S. trade policy stresses establishing free trade areas (FTAs) with partners spanning the globe. Motivations include enhancing goods and services trade; stimulating investment flows; extending standards on intellectual property rights, labor, and the environment; and addressing geopolitical concerns. Simulations of FTAs with the United States highlight the importance of trade complementarity, trade diversion, and welfare losses for nonmembers. Agriculture and textiles play a central role in determining welfare outcomes. Initial improvement in market access enjoyed by participants could be eroded progressively as global liberalization proceeds, and this preference erosion might act as a disincentive to participate in multilateral liberalization.

Current U.S. trade policy stresses establishing free trade areas (FTAs) with partners spanning the globe. Motivations include enhancing goods and services trade; stimulating investment flows; extending standards on intellectual property rights, labor, and the environment; and addressing geopolitical concerns. Simulations of FTAs with the United States highlight the importance of trade complementarity, trade diversion, and welfare losses for nonmembers. Agriculture and textiles play a central role in determining welfare outcomes. Initial improvement in market access enjoyed by participants could be eroded progressively as global liberalization proceeds, and this preference erosion might act as a disincentive to participate in multilateral liberalization.

In 2001, the United Nations University launched UNU-CRIS, a research and training programme on comparative regional integration to study the role of regional integration in global governance. This is a timely product of the research undertaken at UNU-CRIS. The report represents a unique collaboration between all regional UN Economic Commissions. It focuses on one of the central issues in the debate on global governance.

This paper examines the web of over 40 trade agreements that now exist in the Latin America and the Caribbean region. These agreements and their negotiation processes have generated centripetal and centrifugal forces that tend to unify and divide the regional integration process. While these agreements emerge as an opportunity for signatory countries, they also generate concerns in relation to such aspects as their consistency with multilateral commitments and the broadening and deepening of trade rules and disciplines beyond those being assumed in WTO.

Beyond Bilateralism analyzes how, and to what extent, crucial global and regional security, finance, and trade transformations have altered the U.S.-Japan relationship and how that bilateral relationship has in turn influenced those global and regional trends.

In 2001, the United Nations University launched UNU-CRIS, a research and training programme on comparative regional integration to study the role of regional integration in global governance. This is a timely product of the research undertaken at UNU-CRIS. The report represents a unique collaboration between all regional UN Economic Commissions. It focuses on one of the central issues in the debate on global governance.

This publication considers whether regional trade agreements have led to a new form of economic co-operation, by promoting deeper integration in the regulatory structures of participating countries. An examination of recent experiences are found to show that, although there is no single model for deeper integration, regional trade agreements have generally more effective than more remote WTO procedures in facilitating trade and improving transparency. Regional processes and rules are found to have been consistent with the multilateral obligations of each party, with additional commitments in the regional agreements complementing WTO rules.

This volume considers the implications of revived interest in regional integration for the world trading system.