<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><p>A neglected aspect of regional trade agreements (RTAs) is their protectionist potential. In times of a stagnating World Trade Organization (WTO), growing economic nationalism and skepticism about the merits of free trade and trade agreements, the paper examines to what extent recently signed RTAs really promote genuine free trade or rather foster sneaky protectionism under the guise of free trade. For this, the paper proposes an ideal-type free trade agreement benchmark model based on a classical liberal perspective and applies it in a multiple case study approach to assess three cases of recently concluded mega-RTAs: the Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), the renegotiated North American trade agreement USCMA, and the Canada–European Union (EU) agreement CETA. The article shows that all of them are far from the classical liberal ideal of totally free trade and have a high content of back door protectionism suitable to raise trade barriers when politically opportune. In particular, the United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement (USMCA) includes many clear protectionist provisions that might even outweigh its liberalizing stipulations, whereas CPTPP and CETA can be deemed net liberalizing. It concludes that given political economy constraints, RTAs can nevertheless remain a second-best solution to the classical liberal ideals of completely unhampered trade and unilateral liberalization provided that they remove more impediments to free exchange than they cement or create.</p></abstract>

A neglected aspect of regional trade agreements (RTAs) is their protectionist potential. In times of a stagnating World Trade Organization (WTO), growing economic nationalism and skepticism about the merits of free trade and trade agreements, the paper examines to what extent recently signed RTAs really promote genuine free trade or rather foster sneaky protectionism under the guise of free trade. For this, the paper proposes an ideal-type free trade agreement benchmark model based on a classical liberal perspective and applies it in a multiple case study approach to assess three cases of recently concluded mega-RTAs: the Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), the renegotiated North American trade agreement USCMA, and the Canada–European Union (EU) agreement CETA. The article shows that all of them are far from the classical liberal ideal of totally free trade and have a high content of back door protectionism suitable to raise trade barriers when politically opportune. In particular, the United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement (USMCA) includes many clear protectionist provisions that might even outweigh its liberalizing stipulations, whereas CPTPP and CETA can be deemed net liberalizing. It concludes that given political economy constraints, RTAs can nevertheless remain a second-best solution to the classical liberal ideals of completely unhampered trade and unilateral liberalization provided that they remove more impediments to free exchange than they cement or create.

Do free trade agreements promote sneaky protectionism? A classical liberal perspective

International Journal of Management and Economics

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License.

A neglected aspect of regional trade agreements (RTAs) is their protectionist potential. In times of a stagnating World Trade Organization (WTO), growing...

Score	Frequency of assigned score

	TPP-11	NAFTA.2.0	CETA
Met	2	2	1
Almost met	3	2	3
Partly met	3	0	2
Unmet	2	6	4

Criterion	TPP-11	NAFTA.2.0	CETA
(Far-reaching) elimination of tariffs as quickly as possible on as many goods as possible and to the lowest levels possible	Almost met, but long implementation period	Almost met	Almost met, yet many backdoors
Limit the use of the so-called trade remedy or trade defense measures	Unmet	Unmet	Unmet
Open all government procurement markets to goods and services providers from the other party	Partly met	Unmet	Almost met
Open all sectors of the economy to investment	Partly met	Unmet	Almost met
Open all services markets without exception to competition from providers of the other party	Unmet	Unmet	Unmet
Non-restrictive rules of origin for products and services	Partly met	Unmet	Partly met
Includes rules that protect digital trade from taxation and misuse and abuse	Almost met	Met	Unmet
Prohibits governments from imposing localization or other requirements that reduce the efficacy of digital services	Met	Met	Unmet
Promotes mutual recognition of regulatory compliance	Unmet	Almost met	Partly met
Includes an enforceable dispute settlement mechanism	Met	Unmet	Met

Do free trade agreements promote sneaky protectionism? A classical liberal perspective

Article Category: Conceptual Paper

Data publikacji: 30 wrz 2019

Zakres stron: 185 - 200

Otrzymano: 21 maj 2019

Przyjęty: 16 lip 2019

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/ijme-2019-0017

Słowa kluczowe
free trade, trade agreements, protectionism, classical liberalism, political economy

© 2019 Jürgen Wandel, published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License.

Synopsis of the frequency of assigned scores

Synopsis of the assessment of selected trade agreements by criteria of the liberal benchmark model

Do free trade agreements promote sneaky protectionism? A classical liberal perspective

Article Category: Conceptual Paper

Data publikacji: 30 wrz 2019

Zakres stron: 185 - 200

Otrzymano: 21 maj 2019

Przyjęty: 16 lip 2019

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/ijme-2019-0017

Słowa kluczowefree trade, trade agreements, protectionism, classical liberalism, political economy

© 2019 Jürgen Wandel, published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License.

Synopsis of the frequency of assigned scores

Synopsis of the assessment of selected trade agreements by criteria of the liberal benchmark model

Słowa kluczowe
free trade, trade agreements, protectionism, classical liberalism, political economy