1.What is Fast Track Authority?
2.What is a Regional Trade Agreement (RTA)?
3.What forms of economic integration are Regional Trade Agreements most commonly designed to achieve?
4.What is a free trade area?
5.What is a customs union?
6.What is a common market?
7.What is an economic union?
8.What is the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)?
9.What is Mercosur?
10.What is the European Union (EU)?
11.What is the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Forum (APEC)?
12.What is ASEAN?
13.What is the World Trade Organization (WTO)?
14.What is the Organization of American States (OAS)?
15.What is the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA)?
16.What is the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)?
17.What is the World Customs Organization (WCO)?
18.What is the Caribbean Basin Initiative (CBI)?
19.What is the Andean Trade Preference Act (ATPA)?
20.What is the U.S. Israel Free Trade Agreement?
1.What is Fast Track Authority?
Fast Track Authority is trade agreement negotiation authority. Fast track authority provides two guarantees essential to the successful negotiation of trade agreements: (1) a vote on implementing legislation within a fixed period of time, and (2) a yes or no vote on trade agreement legislation without allowing amendments to the legislation.
2.What is a Regional Trade Agreement (RTA)?
A Regional Trade Agreement is a an agreement undertaken by countries located within a defined geographic area whereby the participating countries align themselves with each other for the purpose of achieving a pre-determined form of economic integration.
3.What forms of economic integration are Regional Trade Agreements most commonly designed to achieve?
Free trade areas, customs unions, common markets and economic unions.
4.What is a free trade area?
A free trade area eliminates barriers to trade in goods between or among its members, but the members retain all of their preexisting tariffs and other trade barriers in their trade relations with third countries. The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) is an example of a free trade area.
5.What is a customs union?
A customs union eliminates barriers to trade in goods between or among its members and adopts a common external tariff that all members of the customs union apply to trade from countries outside the union. The Andean Group comprised of Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Venezuela, is an example of a customs union.
6.What is a common market?
A common market eliminates all barriers to trade in goods among the members and adopts a common external tariff. Additionally, a common market also permits the free movement of goods, services, people, and capital within the market. The Southern Common Market (MERCOSUR) is an example of a common market.
7.What is an economic union?
An economic union eliminates all barriers to trade in goods among the members, adopts a common external tariff, permits the free movement of goods, services, people, and capital within the market and provides for common monetary policy, a common fiscal policy and a common currency for its members. The European Union (EU) is an example of an economic union.
8.What is the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)?
NAFTA is a free trade agreement that comprises Canada, the U.S. and Mexico. The objectives of the Agreement are to eliminate barriers to trade, promote conditions of fair competition, increase investment opportunities, provide protection for intellectual property rights and establish procedures for the resolution of disputes.
9.What is Mercosur?
Mercosur (or in Portuguese, Mercosul) is a regional trade agreement subscribed to by Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay. Originally formed as a customs union, the treaty calls for transformation to a common market by the year 2006.
10.What is the European Union (EU)?
The European Union, formerly known as the European Economic Community or the Common Market, is an economic union currently subscribed to by 15 member countries; namely:
Austria
Belgium
Denmark
Finland
France
Germany
Greece
Ireland
Italy
Luxembourg
The Netherlands
Portugal
Spain
Sweden
United Kingdom
11.What is the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Forum (APEC)?
The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) is a 21-member organization to discuss liberalization and facilitation of trade and investment and economic cooperation. Formed in 1989 as an informal forum for dialogue, APEC has taken steps in recent years to institutionalize its functions. Current member countries of APEC are:
Australia
Brunei Darussalam
Canada
Chile
People''s Republic of China
Hong Kong
Indonesia
Japan
Republic of Korea
Malaysia
Mexico
New Zealand
Papua New Guinea
Peru
Republic of the Philippines
Russia
Singapore
Chinese Taipei (Taiwan)
Thailand
United States of America
Vietnam
12.What is ASEAN?
ASEAN is the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). ASEAN''s main objectives are "to accelerate economic growth, social progress and cultural development" and "to promote active collaboration and mutual assistance on matters of common interest in the economic, social, cultural, technical, scientific and administrative fields." ASEAN membership is currently comprised of Brunei Darussalam, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.
13.What is the World Trade Organization (WTO)?
The World Trade Organization (WTO) is the successor organization to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), the fountainhead of international trade law. As of February 1999, the WTO was comprised of 134 member countries and 34 observer countries.
14.What is the Organization of American States (OAS)?
The Organization of American States (OAS) is the world''s oldest regional organization, dating back to 1889. The OAS currently has 35 Member States and has granted Permanent Observer status to 37 States, as well as the European Union. OAS describes its basic purposes as follows: to strengthen the peace and security of the continent; to promote and consolidate representative democracy, with due respect for the principle of nonintervention to prevent possible causes of difficulties and to ensure the pacific settlement of disputes that may arise among the Member States; to provide for common action on the part of those States in the event of aggression; to seek the solution of political, juridical and economic problems that my arise among them; to promote, by cooperative action, their economic, social and cultural development, and to achieve an effective limitation of conventional weapons that will make it possible to devote the largest amount of resources to the economic and social development of the Member States.
In recent years, the OAS adopted a new agenda, which includes the establishment of a Free Trade Area of the Americas, in which it hopes to progressively eliminate barriers to trade and investment.
15.What is the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA)?
The Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) was launched by President Bush in 1990 as a proposal to integrate the economies of the countries in the Western Hemisphere. The goal of the FTAA is a free trade area stretching from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego by 2005.
16.What is the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)?
The Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development is an international organization of the industrialized, market-economy countries. At OECD, representatives from Member countries meet to exchange information and harmonize policy with a view to maximizing growth within Member countries and assisting non-Member countries develop more rapidly. OECD membership is currently comprised of 29 members as follows:
Australia
Austria
Belgium
Canada
Czech Republic
Denmark
Finland
France
Germany
Greece
Hungary
Iceland
Ireland
Italy
Japan
Korea
Luxembourg
Mexico
Netherlands
New Zealand
Norway
Poland
Portugal
Spain
Sweden
Switzerland
Turkey
United Kingdom
United States
17.What is the World Customs Organization (WCO)?
Formerly known as the Customs Cooperation Council, the World Customs Organization was founded in 1950 to study all questions relating to cooperation in customs matters, and to examine technical aspects of customs with a view to attaining the highest possible degree of uniformity. The other activities of the WCO include preparing conventions and recommendations; ensuring uniform interpretation and application of customs conventions (on valuation, tariff and statistical nomenclature, and customs procedures); ensuring conciliatory action in case of dispute; circulating information and advice regarding customs regulations and procedures; and cooperating with other international organizations. As of January 1999 150 countries comprised the membership of the WCO.
18.What is the Caribbean Basin Initiative (CBI)?
Caribbean Basin Initiative (CBI) is a U.S. trade program providing for the duty-free entry into the United States of merchandise from designated beneficiary countries or territories in the Caribbean Basin. The purpose of the program is to increase economic and trade preferences for twenty-eight states of the Caribbean region. The 23 countries include Antigua and Barbuda, the Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, the British Virgin islands, Costa Rica, Dominica, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Grenada, Guatemala, Guyana, Honduras, Jamaica, Montserrat, the Netherlands Antilles, Nicaragua, Panama, St. Christopher-Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Trinidad and Tobago.
19.What is the Andean Trade Preference Act (ATPA)?
The Andean Trade Preference Act is a U.S. trade program, which authorizes preferential trade benefits for the four Andean nations of Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, and Venezuela.
20.What is the U.S. Israel Free Trade Agreement?
The U.S. Israel Free Trade Agreement is a free trade agreement between the U.S. and Israel, which provided for the elimination of all customs duties and most non-tariff barriers between the U.S. and Israel by 1995. |
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