Regional Trade Agreements and U.S. Agriculture

by Mary E. Burfisher and Elizabeth A. Jones

Regional trade agreements (RTA's) have become a fixture in the global trade arena. Their advocates contend that RTA's can serve as building blocks for multilateral trade liberalization. Their opponents argue that these trade pacts will divert trade from more efficient nonmember producing countries. U.S. agriculture can benefit from participating in RTA's and may lose when it does not. Agriculture is the source of most potential U.S. gains from RTA's. While the United States, as a global trader with diverse trade partners, can gain potentially more from global free trade than from RTA's, many recent RTA's have been more comprehensive in their liberalization of agricultural trade than the Uruguay Round. A strong multilateral process can help ensure that RTA's are trade creating, rather than protectionist. (Please also see Regional Trade Agreements and U.S. Agriculture: An Overview).

Keywords: regional trade agreements, global trade, agricultural trade, multilateral trade, trade liberalization, Uruguay Round

In this publication...

• Entire Report
• Frontmatter
• Chapter 1
• Appendix 1. The Economics of Regional Integration
• Appendix 2. Regional Integration and Farm Household Adjustment
• Chapter 2. RTA's and Agricultural Trade: A Retrospective Assessment
• Chapter 3. Multilateral and Regional Trade Reforms: A Global Assessment from a U.S. Perspective
• Chapter 4. A Dynamic Evaluation of the Effects of Western Hemisphere Integration on the U.S. Economy
• Chapter 5. CEEC Accession to the EU: A General Equilibrium Analysis
• Chapter 6. Farm Policy Reforms and Harmonization in the NAFTA
• Appendix 3. Chile Entering NAFTA: Implications for U.S. Horticultural Trade
• Chapter 7. Regional Trade Agreements and Foreign Direct Investment
• Appendix 4. U.S. Foreign Direct Investment in the Global Processed Food Industries
• Chapter 8. Agriculture, GATT, and Regional Trade Agreements
• Appendix 5. U.S.-Israel Free Trade Area Agreement
• Chapter 9. U.S.-Japan Agreements on Beef Imports: A Case of Successful Bilateral Negotiations
• Chapter 10. Economic Integration and Open Regionalism in APEC: The Gains for U.S. Agriculture
• Chapter 11. Enlargement of the European Union to Central and Eastern Europe: Obstacles and Possible Consequences of Policy Harmonization
• Chapter 12. Western Hemisphere Trading Blocs and Tariff Barriers for U.S. Agricultural Exports
• Appendix. Model Documentation