Author: Brett Williams, University of Sydney

Those of us who fear that discriminatory trade agreements (‘DTAs’: some call them Preferential Trade Ageements or Free Trade Agreements) may be becoming obstacles to rather than building blocks for multilateral non-discriminatory trade liberalization have listened to the Australian government’s arguments that multilateral and bilateral liberalization are compatible with each other.

The opening of FTA negotiations with Korea ought to give us cause to reflect on the issue again.

As I have argued to the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, an FTA between Australia and Korea agreement would:

- make it even harder to achieve non-discriminatory multilateral trade liberalization (for example, in the Doha Round) so as to diminish the trade diversion effects of existing discriminatory trade agreements; and

- reward Korea for having played an obstructive role in the Doha Round WTO negotiations.

Read more…