Over the course of sixty years, the European Union (EU) has evolved to become one of the most economically and politically integrated regions in the world. Compare and contrast the EU with one other major global trading bloc, such as NAFTA or ASEAN, with which you are familiar.
Regional trade agreements have been prevalent since the early 1990s. A Regional trade agreement removes all barriers to trade and foreign investment, which means that poor economies are not allowed to use import tariffs to protect their growing industries or their farmers from floods of cheap imports. Free trade agreements also include additional rules on investment that pose a prospective threat to poor people’s access to public services. This clearly states that even though poor countries have the advantage of strength in numbers as compared to the rich economies and countries, the former are more likely to be pushed into accepting unreasonable demands of the richer economies. Therefore, it can be analyzed that a Regional Trade Agreement between equal partners can prove to be beneficial for both, but such an agreement between unequal partners ( rich and a poor economy) shall probably prove to be beneficial for the stronger economy.
In the 21st century, the European Union has realized the importance of changes and advancements in their trade policies, where they need to become more advance and faster in economic policies to compete with rest of the world and stay ahead of them, due to which, they have introduced Free Trade Agreements (FTA’s) especially with emerging markets such as Asia to promote more bilateral trade and business. The stages in regional trade agreement are as follows:
A customs union...
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The European Union has been helped economically ever since World War II. Right after World War II’s end, Europe was struggling to hold on. The countries of the modern-day European Union thought it would be a good idea to come together and help each others struggling economy. To this day, this decision has had a very positive outcome on the EU’s economy. As shown in Diagram 1, the European Union combined together has the world’s highest GDP at 18.3 Trillion USD as compared to the United States’ 17.4 Trillion USD GDP and China’s 10.4 Trillion USD GDP. The idea
Economic integration is the joining of economic policies between different states/regions. This eliminates tariff and non-tariff barriers to the flow of goods, services and factors of production between the regions. Economic integration has varying levels referred to as trading blocs; these are a form economic integration. A trading bloc is a group of nations that have been made a bilateral or multilateral agreement. There are four types of trading blocs. The least advanced level is the Free Trade Area. The features of this level is that reduced tariff barriers between signatories, which at times are abandoned altogether and there is free movement of labour and capital and the non-member countries have an independent set of tariffs against member countries. The second level of economic integration is the Customs Union. This is a Free Trade Agreement plus a common external tariff. Member countries agree to reduce tariff barriers among themselves and they have in common, this is referred to as tax harmonisation. The Common Market is the third level of trade blocs. This has features of the Customs Union plus free movement of capital and labour and some policy harmonisation such as similar trade policies to prevent certain member countries having an unfair advantage. The European Union is an example of a Common Market and is an economic and political partnership that involves 28 European countries. It allows goods and people to be moved around and has its own currency, the euro, which is used by nineteen of the member countries (The UK excluded). It also has its own parliament and sets rules in a wide range of areas such as transport,...
"Economy & Trade." Office of the United States Trade Representative. Office of the United States Trade Representative, n.d. Web. 19 Apr. 2014.
The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) is an agreement between America, Canada And Mexico that coincides a triune free trade economic bloc between the three countries. NAFTA was a necessary deal to be made between the North American Nations to compete in the “Economic World Order”. NAFTA was first designed and drafted by American president George Bush senior, Canadian Prime minister Brian Mulroney and Mexican president Carlos Salinas on December the 12th 1992 in San Antonio Texas. NAFTA’S original creators where not the men that finalized the triune trade bloc but instead NAFTA was redrafted to appease all recipients of the deal and its respectful citizens. NAFTA was finalized and singed on December the 8th 1993 by American president Bill Clinton, Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien and Mexican President Carlos Salinas. NAFTA came in to full effect on January the 1st 1994. The history of NAFTA and its negative and Positive effect and the necessity of NAFTA will all be explained in this paper.
The European Union cooperation all started with economic integration. Since the beginning of the ECSC in 1952 until now one of the major forces but also one of the major weaknesses of the EU has been their will for a common market and a monetary union. The single market was achieved in 1992 with the entrance into function of the Maastricht treaty. This treaty greatly influenced how states would have to deal with external border control and the free movement of the people because what the Maastricht treaty did was not only opening a single market, but also allowing people, goods and services to move freely across European Union member states. Economic integration has explained by Nevin has usually 5 level which goes from he lowest o he highest level of cooperation. The first level of integration is the preferential tariff which only allows st...
The process of joining the World Trade Organization is very complicated. The country applying for membership must first describe all characteristics of its economic and trade policies. The prospective member will then begin parallel bilateral talks with member countries to n...
Globalization has become one of the most influential forces in the twentieth century. International integration of world views, products, trade and ideas has caused a variety of states to blur the lines of their borders and be open to an international perspective. The merger of the Europeans Union, the ASEAN group in the Pacific and NAFTA in North America is reflective of the notion of globalized trade. The North American Free Trade Agreement was the largest free trade zone in the world at its conception and set an example for the future of liberalized trade. The North American Free Trade Agreement is coming into it's twentieth anniversary on January 1st, 2014. 1 NAFTA not only sought to enhance the trade of goods and services across the borders of Canada, US and Mexico but it fostered shared interest in investment, transportation, communication, border relations, as well as environmental and labour issues. The North American Free Trade Agreement was groundbreaking because it included Mexico in the arrangement.2 Mexico was a much poorer, culturally different and protective country in comparison to the likes of Canada and the United States. Many members of the U.S Congress were against the agreement because they did not want to enter into an agreement with a country that had an authoritarian regime, human rights violations and a flawed electoral system.3 Both Canadians and Americans alike, feared that Mexico's lower wages and lax human rights laws would generate massive job losses in their respected economies. Issues of sovereignty came into play throughout discussions of the North American Free Trade Agreement in Canada. Many found issue with the fact that bureaucrats and politicians from alien countries would be making deci...
CT Publishing Company, Redding Calif. 1996. North American Free Trade Agreement. Vol.1, US Government Printing Office, 192-330-817/70635, 1995.
The political force moved away from the painstakingly and time-consuming technique of multilateral tariff negotiations to smaller regional and bilateral provisions - the Regional Trade Agreement. In these arrangements; members accord preferential treatment , basically agreeing to liberalize the exchange of goods and services amongst each another giving regard to certain trade barriers. RTA is not the first-hand way of trade liberalization though. Initially, when multilateral trade discussions used to happen, two-sided and multiparty FTA”s filled the vacuum. There were restrictions from stringent and premeditated trade arrangements earlier, thus a lot of states are now moving towards freer trade for their own benefits.
As of today, there are 28 member states of the European Union. Along with five more countries that have requested acceptance into the EU, but still are waiting to hear the final verdict from the EU . The European Union has many common objectives that enable this supranational entity to fully function on a daily basis, year round. The first of which is strong economic ties to its member states. With strong economic ties in place between each member state, the EU has evolved into not only a continental market, but a massive global market. This was furthered even more with the implementation of the euro in 1999. With the introduction of the euro; trade and travel between countries became more encouraged and streamlined. As well as doing away with monetary exchange rates between countries within the EU . The euro radically changed the way citizens within member states of the European Union conducted themselves, their businesses and their lives.
Right after WWII, this world has seen two world wars in the last 50 years, with millions of people dying and, but It seemed that this world needed something to help prevent something from happening again without it being the last option. The European Union not only made war the last option for Europe it connected most of the countries to what is called a supranational. This is a kind of organization that allows countries to interconnected with one another, by connecting with one another this allows theses countries not only run as a single unit, but they provide for a better economy. The European Union has help avoid war within Europe over last few decades. With the interconnection of the European Union, It has not brought more cooperation among the members on the EU, also it has brought more economic dependency with different countries from within the EU, and outside the EU. The European Union is a model example on how different should be run. The EU improves EU, by interconnecting countries, which not only improves the economy, but brings more cooperation and peace among countries.
The European Union economic and political union is divided between twenty-eight European countries that united to preserve the economy, of the union. This form of economic preservation allowed “an organization spanning policy areas, from climate, environment, and health to external relations and security, justice and migration” (EU 2018). First, to build the European Union every country within the union avoided conflict by trading goods with one another. The act of courtesy in trade amongst the countries promoted peace and economic growth between the European countries (EU 2018).
The all over the world the each country joined one or more the trade organizations. One biggest organization is WTO (World Trade Organization). The 136 countries joined to WTO right now. The principle of WTO is Most-Favoured-Nation Treatment: Treating other people equally under the WTO agreements. Countries cannot normally discriminate between their trading partners, Grant someone a special favour and you have to do the same for all other WTO members. But some exceptions are allowed; the representative of example is the FTA.
Trade diplomacy is now a part of the relationship that a country shares with another. After the establishment of WTO, 20 PTAs are formed on average on yearly basis. However one can notice the decline in regional cooperation, as cross-regional agreements are increasing in number. According to Heydon Ken (2010) over half of the world’s trade is through preferential trade ag...
Free Trade Agreements have always tried and enhanced the growth of two economies or more different countries. Under Free Trade Agreement, two or more countries can do trade with low tariffs, exemption from import- export Duties and other benefactors decided by the signing countries. Economics is all about satisfying the needs & wants of different commodities along with finding the alternatives of scarce resources. No country can survive individually nor can produce all the goods at the same time. As a result, country who is naturally gifted with natural resources such as fossil fuels, mines, labours etc and it is efficient to provide or in other words open to trade with other countries for the same benefit may enter into an agreement with two or more different countries so that each economy of the respective countries can gain from the scarce resources and fulfil their demands.