History of International Trade Agreement.....

International trade agreements have been negotiated and renegotiated for centuries. The history of trade is described by the World Trade Organization (WTO) as waves of agreements interspersed with multiple setbacks and reversals......

“While the historical trend has been toward more openness and deeper rules in international trade agreements – and away from protectionist blocs – progress has not been in a straight line,” according to a WTO report on trade history.1 Yet 2018 may well be “a time of historic uncertainty around global trade,” as recently declared by the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC).
 

Recent History of International Trade Agreements

Following a surge of trade deals in recent years, there were nearly 300 bilateral and regional agreements in force worldwide by mid-2018 – in addition to the WTO’s overarching agreements among 164 nations. At the same time, new trade deals were still being negotiated, long-standing agreements were being renegotiated, and established conventions of global trade were being publicly challenged.

“Fears surrounding this uncertainty are particularly acute for the global business community, as many companies depend on global value chains vulnerable to new trade barriers,” the ICC said. And despite progress over time, the ICC’s Open Markets Index 2017 gave an average score of only 3.6 out of 6 (where 6 is most open) to a group of 75 countries. (The U.S. also scored a 3.6.)

International trade statistics show global trade in goods at an all-time high, with growth having rebounded in the wake of the global financial crisis to reach 4.7 percent in 2017. Some $17.2 trillion in goods and $5.25 trillion in services were traded worldwide in 2017. 

U.S. companies exported $2.35 trillion and imported $2.9 trillion in goods and services in 2017, up from $25.9 billion and $22.4 billion, respectively, in 1960. “By the late twentieth century … the bulk of large U.S. industries had internationalized their production and had become dependent on foreign trade,” according to I.M. Destler, author of American Trade Politics. “So American business, heretofore divided, had become a strong overall supporter of trade-expanding agreements.”

At the same time, the global mosaic of international trade agreements has been changing. Recently completed deals include the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership among Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, Peru, New Zealand, Singapore, and Vietnam; the Japan-EU Economic Partnership Agreement; the Canada-European Union Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement; and others. 

Canada, Mexico, and the U.S. have been renegotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement. The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership has been in negotiations among the 10-nation Association of Southeast Asian Nations and the countries of Australia, China, India, Japan, New Zealand, and South Korea. The U.S. has bilateral free trade agreements with 20 countries, half of them in Latin America and the Caribbean.