Round Of Trade Negotiations Research Articles

The uruguay round of trade negotiations: Current framework and issues

The International ExecutiveVolume 32, Issue 6 p. 12-13 Article The uruguay round of trade negotiations: Current framework and issues David K. Diebold, David K. Diebold DAVID K. DIEBOLD is counsel to the international law firm of Dechert Price & Rhoads in its Washington, D.C. office.Search for more papers by this authorNatalie Bej, Natalie Bej NATALIE BEJ is an associate in the Washington office of Dechert Price & Rhoads.Search for more papers by this author David K. Diebold, David K. Diebold DAVID K. DIEBOLD is counsel to the international law firm of Dechert Price & Rhoads in its Washington, D.C. office.Search for more papers by this authorNatalie Bej, Natalie Bej NATALIE BEJ is an associate in the Washington office of Dechert Price & Rhoads.Search for more papers by this author First published: May/June 1991 https://doi.org/10.1002/tie.5060320605 AboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat No abstract is available for this article. Volume32, Issue6May/June 1991Pages 12-13 RelatedInformation

Telecommunications Services in Canada: The Changing Policy and Regulatory Context

This study assesses the changing policy and regulatory context for telecommunications services and their provision and use in Canada. A number of recent developments, including a I987 Department of Communications policy statement, recent CRTC regulatory decisions, changes in the role of Telesat Canada and Teleglobe Canada, as well as implementation of the Canada-US FXA, are treated. Prospective developments in several other areas such as another attempt to introduce longdistance competition in Canada and the implications of the Uruguay Round services trade negotiations are also examined. The theme throughout is that telecommunications services, both domestic and international, are being provided and used within an increasingly open and competitive environment.

Manufacturing Consensus: The Institutionalization of American Private Interests in the Tokyo Trade Round

The Tokyo Round trade negotiations that culminated in 1979 represented the most complex and far-reaching set of multilateral agreements on trade in history. These negotiations, which got under way in 1975 under sponsorship of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), differed from previous multilateral trade negotiations in their focus on nontariff barriers. Earlier trade rounds concentrated on lowering tariff levels. The shift to negotiations over nontariff issues, however, expanded greatly the range of commercial interests at stake and posed new legal and administrative challenges for governments. Nontariff barriers by their very nature involve impediments to trade that are embedded in domestic statutory law.' Agreements over such issues necessarily involve legislative action, serving to draw more domestic commercial interests into the process and attenuating the authoritative position of the executive. More than ever before, government officials in the Tokyo Round were engaged in two-sided bargaining-with both domestic commercial interests and with foreign governments. By most accounts, however, the Tokyo Round was remarkably successful, as was the American government's role in these negotiations.2 Forty-one countries, whose trade constitutes 90 percent of world trade, signed the final agreements. These multilateral agreements were concluded in Geneva in April 1979, and the Carter administration submitted necessary and appropriate legislation to Congress in June. Following procedures agreed upon in the 1974 Trade Act, which provided for a fast track legislative review of the provisions, the Trade Agreements Act of 1979 was passed by Congress and signed into law in only a few weeks time.3 The quick ratification of the multilateral agreements by the United States government is surprising and poses a theoretical puzzle. The conventional image of a fragmented and penetrated American state would lead one to expect a very different outcome. According to this weak state image, the institutional structures of government decision making provide easy access for private groups and few capacities for executive officials to pursue independent policy goals. More so than in other advanced industrial countries, American foreign economic policy reflects the biases and pressures of private social groups.4 From this perspective, one would have expected much more difficulty in negotiating and implementing the Tokyo Round agreements. These institutional obstacles to executive control of policy were exacerbated by unique domestic political problems that confronted the Carter administration in the late 1970s. The administration was experiencing a stark erosion of domestic political support, which served

Chemical industry wary of tariff concessions

Recently the new omnibus trade bill and the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement have captured the spotlight on the world trade stage. Hidden in the shadows has been the Uruguay round of multilateral trade negotiations. The Uruguay round, the eighth such round of trade negotiations held under the auspices of the General Agreement on Tariffs & Trade (GATT), was formally launched at a GATT ministerial meeting in Punta del Este, Uruguay, in 1986. It is scheduled to continue through 1990. The advisers who shape U.S. chemical industry trade policy, however, certainly haven't forgotten about the Uruguay trade talks. Realizing that GATT will hold a midterm review of the talks' progress and prospects in Montreal next month, Dexter F. Baker, chairman and chief executive officer of Air Products & Chemicals and head of the Office of the Chemical Industry Trade Adviser (OCITA), recently shot off a letter to U.S. Trade Representative Clayton K. Yeutter reemphasizing the industry's ...

Textiles and Clothing in a New Round of Trade Negotiations

Because developing countries generally have a comparative advantage in the production of labor-intensive textiles and clothing, the liberalization of trade in these products is critical to their prospects for increasing foreign exchange earnings. The new round of trade negotiations is likely to be less important for trade in textiles and clothing, however, than were the recent renegotiations of the fourth Multifibre Arrangement (MFA). As the MFA remains in effect until July 1991, this limits the range of measures which can be altered in the interim. Nonetheless, textile trade will influence the process and outcome of the current negotiations because of the overlap of textile trade disputes with other broader trade issues. These include tariffs, the rollback of tariffs and quotas, voluntary export restraints, and other nontariff barriers, all of which have been applied to textiles trade at various times. Each of these measures has an influence on trade flows and a cost to both the importing and exporting countries. Any proponents of liberalization of trade in textiles and clothing must not only be familiar with these costs but also must be knowledgeable about the economic and political forces which have initiated and sustained the protective measures. The following discussion suggests that there are groups and transitional approaches which may favor some progress in textile trade liberalization in the current round of negotiations. The Multifibre Arrangement (MFA), the international rules which govern much

International Control of Subsidies and Countervailing Duties

The range and number of cases of administered protection in the 1 980s suggests that it has begun to play an important role in shaping international trade flows. As most of such cases are brought by the United States against developing country exporters, they are also a matter of concern for developing countries in the Uruguay Round of trade negotiations. The internationally negotiated code on subsidies and countervailing duties is ambiguous in its definition of legal subsidies, and thus in the appropriate use of countervailing duties. Because the code is applied at the national level, there is considerable pressure by domestic producers on administering agents to increase the use of such protective measures through the adoption of provisional measures while the investigation is being conducted, and through the interpretation of criteria for coverage. Given that the most successful developing countries have been those which adopt the most neutral policies toward imported and domestic goods, and between sectors domestically, the very biased application of the subsidies and the trade policy distortions common in the countries examined, together with the frequency of countervailing actions against the subsidies, suggest that developing countries would benefit from abandonment of the subsidies. In September of 1986, the world's trading nations agreed to begin a new round of multilateral trade negotiations, to be called the Uruguay Round. The previous negotiations, the Tokyo Round, ended in 1979. In the six intervening years, 1980-85, seven countries and the European Community (EEC) initiated 1,155 antidumping cases. There were also 425 antisubsidy cases, half-a-hundred safeguards cases, and several hundred other trade practice cases resulting from national attempts to interpret and enforce various international agreements (table 1). The sheer number of such cases suggests that the terms and conditions on which goods are traded across national boundaries are being affected by the outcomes of such administrative processes as much as by the gradual unrolling of the tariff reductions agreed at the Tokyo Round. The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and the codes which

Chemical Industry Prepares for New Round of Trade Negotiations

Now that the elections are over and President will be returning to the White House for another four years, trade officials in the chemical industry are wondering if they will have to start preparing for a Reagan of multilateral trade negotiations. Such a possibility is already being actively considered in several chemical industry forums—among them the Chemical Manufacturers Association, Synthetic Organic Chemical Manufacturers Association, and Office of the Chemical Industry Trade Advisor. It's no secret that the Administration is pushing for a new round of multilateral trade negotiations (MTN) that would be held under the auspices of the General Agreement on Tariffs & Trade (GATT). The last major round of GATT trade discussions—the Tokyo round—ended five years ago. Results of the Tokyo round, which dragged on from 1973 to 1979, are still being implemented. Administration trade officials, nevertheless, think it's time to start looking ahead to a new round of trade ...

Welfare Effects of Multilateral Tariff Reductions

This paper analyzes the economic efficiency effects of tariff concessions made in the Kennedy Round trade negotiations. The static welfare methodology used differs from previous analyses of multilateral tariff reductions by focusing on terms of trade changes. These changes often are incompletely allowed for because the underlying currency appreciations and depreciations necessary to balance unequal shifts in import and export values are ignored. Relative to the traditionally estimated welfare gains from tariff reductions, these terms of trade effects may have a major impact. It is shown that the Kennedy Round cuts may have left the U.S. worse off due to a terms of trade deterioration. Previous work only touches on this problem. In a contribution made over a decade ago, Balassa and Kreinin [5] estimate the static welfare gains from reducing tariffs by 50 percent from pre-Kennedy Round levels. However, their approach does not force each country's trade balance to remain unchanged, nor does it allow for any benefits from holding more official reserves or for any loss from holding fewer reserves. A preferable alternative is one utilized by Basevi [7] in assessing the welfare effects of U.S. tariffs. He forces the change in the trade balance resulting from a unilateral removal of existing tariffs to equal zero by also allowing the exchange rate to depreciate. This study follows a similar procedure in a multilateral context. The analysis admittedly is partial equilibrium in the sense that trade changes are calculated in the export and import markets of each country separately; no world trade constraint is imposed.

Tokyo Rounds of Trade Negotiations and the Generalised System of Preferences

Tokyo Rounds of Trade Negotiations and the Generalised System of Preferences

Technology and Neo‐Mercantilism in International Agricultural Trade

HILE developments in agricultural trade in this decade have VW Vbeen reasonably favorable, the underlying trend and some recent developments suggests a very difficult and dangerous period ahead in the 1970's. The results of the Kennedy Round trade negotiations were clearly beneficial for certain commodities. Agricultural trade has generally been increasing. Among the OECD countries, which are the major trading countries, it increased by 6.5 percent per annum from 1960 through 1967 [5]. But in spite of this overall progress, some of the general problems raised by other writers in the recent past are even more threatening now [2, 4]; and there are technological and policy developments that add new complex dimensions. All countries were aware of the need to provide for expanding trade opportunities for agriculture during the course of the Kennedy Round. However, the substantive negotiating sessions in agriculture came too close to the end of the Kennedy Round talks to allow time for negotiating fundamental changes in access to markets or in national farm policies. The liberalization that took place was therefore modest in character.