A Comparative Study of the RCEP and the USMCA from the Perspective of International Political Economy: Based on the Analysis of Digital Trade Rulemaking

Abstract

Reginal Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) and The United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) are both emerging free trade agreements, covering the major economies in East Asia and North America respectively. After screening, 24 papers were selected to do a comparative study of RCEP and USMCA. The paper applies the interdependence theory and the dependency theory in the field of international political economy to interpret the logic of rulemaking of the two FTAs. For the RCEP, the key is the growing interdependence (with increasing trade volumes and growing economic gains) between ASEAN countries and other member states. In addition, economic complementarity also influences the interdependence between the ASEAN and other states in East Asia, reinforcing their willingness to deepen this relationship. For the USMCA, the key is the dependency relationship between the U.S. and Mexico. This dependency continues to this day due to the untouchable structural power of the United States, and still forces Mexico to submit to the U.S. willingness to set rules for the USMCA. This paper innovatively introduces theories from the field of international political economy to study the rulemaking of the new FTAs, which provides certain directions for future academic research in the related fields.