The Political Economy of United States’ Free Trade Arrangements

Abstract

Far from being the leader, the US has been a ‘domino’ belatedly falling into line in the global rush toward bilateral and regional free trade arrangements. Often the initiative for negotiations has come from seemingly weaker trading partners. Once in the game, however, and aware of the asymmetries of market power and issue salience that enhance US bargaining leverage, the US has been aggressively pursuing a variety of commercial and diplomatic interests, both tactical and strategic, that include bolstering local democratic institutions and processes of economic reform, strengthening US security ties, accelerating region‐wide commercial liberalisation by allying with a regional leader, establishing new precedents to use as bench markers in future trade negotiations, and otherwise using free trade accords to advance its comprehensive global trade policy agenda. Bilateralism and regionalism have opened the door to an explicit introduction of political criteria, in contradiction to GATT/WTO apolitical universalism. While often reactive to the initiatives of other nations, the US has not been indiscriminate, deflecting the entreaties of suitors where US international political economy interests are not served.

Preferential trading arrangements as strategic positioning

“…Prior to Bush 43, the US was notoriously slow in promoting even those PTAs which it joined: perhaps in part because of the ratification process (cf. Destler (2006) Part 2 andFeinberg (2003)). It would be interesting to extend our model to incorporate features like trade promotion (fast track) authority.…”

Network Dynamics and the Evolution of International Cooperation

“…The USSingapore agreement-the first such agreement between the US and an Asian country-informed other Asian states of US standards on contentious issues like trade in services, government procurement, intellectual property, investment protection, labor standards, and environmental regulation (Weintraub 2004, 89). The US-Chile agreement accomplished similar goals with respect to Latin American countries (Feinberg 2003;Weintraub 2004). The agreements appear to have been relatively successful in this regard, as they opened doors to trade talks between the US and additional partners in both regions (Feinberg 2003).…”

“…The US-Chile agreement accomplished similar goals with respect to Latin American countries (Feinberg 2003;Weintraub 2004). The agreements appear to have been relatively successful in this regard, as they opened doors to trade talks between the US and additional partners in both regions (Feinberg 2003). Thus far, the US has "closed the triad" with three of Chile's FTA partners-Colombia, Peru, and Panama.…”

A política comercial da administração Bush: o CAFTA-DR e a resistência interior

“…Schott (2004: 363) aponta que além dos objetivos estritamente econômicos, há o intuito de promover o "estado de direito, fortalecer as fundações da governança democrática e assegurar apoio aos esforços globais contra o terrorismo". Na mesma linha, Feinberg (2003Feinberg ( : 1027 sustenta que os EUA "esperam que um Hemisfério Ocidental integrado gere externalidades positivas ou spillover numa série de questões transfronteiriças de preocupação comum, de contraterrorismo à contra-narcóticos, de proteção ambiental a cooperação energética".…”