From Preferential Trade Arrangements to Free Trade Agreements: One of the Downturns of Cooperation in International Relations?

Jose Jaime Baena-Rojas and Susana Herrero-Olarte
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Jose Jaime Baena-Rojas: School of Management, Institución Universitaria CEIPA, Medellín 05001, Colombia
Susana Herrero-Olarte: Faculty of Economics and Business (FACEA), Universidad de Las Américas, Quito 170102, Ecuador

Social Sciences, 2020, vol. 9, issue 8, 1-17

Abstract: Since the signing of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and the creation of the World Trade Organization (WTO), preferential trade agreements (PTAs) have been an interesting tool to promote international cooperation through the granting of non-reciprocal and/or unilateral tariff preferences by developed countries to developing countries. These international agreements have tended to generate critical trade dependencies for the receiving countries. Due to the circumstances of world trade and due to the lack of interest of the grantors to maintain this type of tariff preference, these developing countries are forced to renegotiate their PTAs into to free trade agreements (FTAs). To demonstrate this, we conducted a qualitative analysis to characterize the behavior of PTAs and their impact on the configuration of FTAs and to obtain indicators and trends. The results suggested a predominance of FTAs and a decline in PTAs. This was done to maintain access to the markets within those granting countries, which also became the main trading partners of these PTA recipient countries.

Keywords: preferential trade agreements; free trade agreements; international cooperation; multilateral trading system; international relations (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A B N P Y80 Z00 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
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