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bilateralism & multilateralism

Stricter rules of origin won’t help Michigan’s auto workers
9-Oct-2024 The Hill
The United States International Trade Commission found that, through 2022, there were “few signs” that USMCA’s rules of origin had led to changes in production, trade, employment and investment or competitiveness.
The peasant women of La Via Campesina in Africa are saying NO to the WTO and the FTAs
17-Sep-2024 Via Campesina
Global resistance to free trade intensifies: International day of action against the WTO and free trade agreements
A new framework for trade based on food sovereignty
16-Sep-2024 Nyéléni
The current international trade order was established to support the expansion of transnational companies and to keep colonial powers in control of the world’s natural resources.
NFUniversity: Colonial roots of modern free trade agreements
9-Sep-2024 NFU
This talk explored the colonial origins of modern international trade. Geopolitics, power relations, and corporate interests have shaped trade rules for over 500 years before it reached its current form.
Trade agreements: How African states are resisting pressure from the North but not managing to assert their priorities
5-Jun-2024 Equal Times
African countries are regularly offered Free Trade Agreements by the world’s major economic powers. The balance of power is so unequal that they seem forever condemned to be the big losers.
ECVC rejects free trade narrative of AGRIFISH council and demands market regulation and an end to FTAs to address root causes of farmers’ issues
2-May-2024 European Coordination Via Campesina
For farmers on the ground, FTAs and the WTO rules only serve to drive down prices as far as possible, with no regard for the costs to the wellbeing and health of farmers and citizens, nor the impact on climate and biodiversity.
The two faces of free trade
8-Mar-2024 Project Syndicate
Whereas free trade was once the central cause of progressive reformers seeking to combat entrenched interests on behalf of ordinary people, now it is the bête noire of both right-wing nationalists and the mainstream left. To understand why attitudes changed so radically, one must follow the money.
EAC set to negotiate trade agreements with UK, UAE after EPA flops
29-Feb-2024 The Independent
At least seven countries have requested free trade arrangements with the East. African Community (EAC), as the bloc also intensifies efforts to expand the markets for its products.
Free Trade Agreements are Failed Trade Agreements. An alternative is now urgent and necessary
27-Feb-2024 La Via Campesina
La Via Campesina’s Statement and Open call for Endorsement
Farmers’ Protest: Why are farmers demanding India’s withdrawal from WTO?
14-Feb-2024 DNA
Farmers started protesting with a new set of demands including India’s withdrawal from the World Trade Organization and scrapping all Free Trade Agreements.
Overview of the implications for developing countries/LDCs of the JSI E-commerce text (Revision 5)
18-Dec-2023
Developing countries and least developed countries (LDCs) face growing pressure to participate in and adopt the outcomes of plurilateral negotiations on electronic commerce.
US drops digital trade demands at WTO to allow room for stronger tech regulation
27-Oct-2023 Reuters
US Trade Representative Katherine Tai has dropped longstanding US digital trade demands in World Trade Organization talks in order to give Congress room to regulate big tech firms.
Call to action: 10 September 2023 – International day of action against the WTO and free trade agreements
22-Aug-2023 La Via Campesina
It has been twenty years since the World Trade Organization’s imperialist, neoliberal and neo-colonial free trade policies led to the sacrifice of one of our peasant leaders at the gates of the Ministerial meeting venue in Cancun, Mexico.
India plans to challenge EU carbon tax at WTO
5-Jun-2023 Reuters
The exporters’ body warned the EU plan could make India’s free trade agreements with other countries and a proposed pact with the EU "redundant" as the prices of many exporters’ goods would rise.
WTO e-commerce moratorium: FTAs as the logical next step?
23-May-2023 Lexology
FTAs are providing a way forward for WTO Members who are adamant about the continued application of the e-commerce moratorium.
The rise of trade in services: corporate manoeuvres and popular resistance
6-Mar-2023 bilaterals.org
The idea of ‘Trade in services’ is an artificial creation of the late 1970s and 1980s, designed to bring the social and public phenomenon of services under international ‘trade’ rules that would work for corporations.
Rigging the rules: How Big Tech uses stealth “trade” agreements and how we can stop them
2-Mar-2023 Third World Network
Efforts to curb the ruinous business practices of the Big Tech corporations are at risk of being impeded by “digital trade” rules negotiated in international trade pacts. It is time to overturn this anti-regulatory agenda in favour of a governance model that prioritizes digital industrialization and data as a public good.
More free trade will not solve the food crisis
8-Jun-2022 Al Jazeera
WTO has lost the trust of the people, and all governments must keep agricultural matters out of free trade agreements.
India has no plans to join the WTO govt procurement agreement
6-May-2022 Mint
India has “no plans" to join the government procurement agreement grouping of the World Trade Organization, but is open to negotiating such agreements as part of bilateral deals.
Government pledges protection for bilateral investors on AfCFTA
6-May-2022 Ghana Web
The Government of Ghana has pledged to protect Bilateral Investment Treaties (BITs) for countries that sign agreement with it for reciprocal foreign direct returns on the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA).