While the integration process in the Caribbean Community and Common Market (Caricom) has only been in force for a few years, it is, in the author’s view, clear that the narrow free trade approach used so far will not be able to deal with the widening gap between the better-off and the less...

Trade dynamics within the EU are presently pushing it towards deepening globalisation through bilateral comprehensive trade agreements which establish far-reaching rules that govern the bilateral trade relationship. The European Commission has defended these agreements as a vehicle through which...

A key issue in the talks on the fourth Lomé Convention is the demand of some Caribbean and Central American nations to join the ACP group, so as to benefit from the preferential treatment and financing facilities it enjoys. A specific concern is accession to the Sugar Protocol appended to the...

While multinational agreements are subject to lively discussions and their negotiations the frequent topic of our news, little is known about bilateral agreements. This despite the fact that their number has greatly increased since the worldwide recession. So alone the USA and the EC have both...

On 6 July 2017, after four years of negotiation, the EU reached an agreement with Japan over the main elements of a comprehensive free trade agreement. The breakthrough came at a time when progress on multilateral trade negotiations at the global level seemed out of reach and EU bilateral trade...

The question that remains unanswered is whether Trump’s tariff strategy is a tactical one, intended to wring concessions from China, Germany, Mexico and others, or whether it represents a genuine abandonment of the U.S. commitment to free trade that dates back to the mid-1930s. The answer will...