On 29 November 2012 the European Council decided to give the Commission ‘the green light’, to start trade negotiations with Japan, aiming at the conclusion of a Free Trade Agreement between the two sides.
As Sting has already noticed the EU has embarked over the past few years on a huge operation, to conclude FTAs with its trading partners outside the North Atlantic economic volume. This is a gigantic step, bound to turn a page in international trade history. The largest trading economies of the world, the US and the European Union in reality have abandoned the order and the terms on international trade as guaranteed by the World Trade Organisation.
After the collapse of the Doha Round of the WTO, a development that has to be totally charged on the US, Washington started to negotiate FTAs with its main political followers all over the world. The EU could not stand and watch. Now it’s the turn of Japan to negotiate a FTA with the EU. Japan is the EU’s second biggest trading partner in Asia, after China. Together, the EU and Japan account for more than a third of world GDP.
This FTA way to reshape international trade, a solid base for world economic growth all over the recorded and non-recorded history, is a pitiful development, meant to restore the American domination over the world economy. So far the EU is responding well to this challenge and the whole affair may become a boomerang for Washington. Might is not gained with tricks but with real force, economic and political. The US seems to lose grounds on both accounts.
For more details see: http://ec.europa.eu/trade/creating-opportunities/bilateral-relations/countries/japan/http://
For Doha Round see: http://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/dda_e/dda_e.htm
Speak your Mind Here