"A free-trade agreement (FTA) or treaty is an agreement according to international law to form a free-trade area between the cooperating states."
Legal agreements between countries that eliminate or reduce barriers to free trade.
International Trade: The exchange of goods and services between countries.
Trade Agreements: A legally binding agreement between two or more countries that addresses issues related to trade.
Tariffs: A tax imposed on imported or exported goods as a means of regulating trade.
Non-tariff Barriers: Various restrictions other than tariffs that are placed on imports or exports, such as quotas or subsidies.
Rules of Origin: Guidelines for determining the country of origin of a product for the purpose of applying tariffs or other trade measures.
Most-Favored Nation (MFN) Status: A status granted by one country to another in which it agrees to provide the same trade benefits as it provides to its most-favored trading partner.
Bilateral and Multilateral Agreements: Agreements between two countries or between multiple countries, respectively.
Intellectual Property Rights (IPR): Legal rights granted to creators of intellectual property, including patents, trademarks and copyrights.
Services Trade: The trade of services between countries, such as financial services, tourism, and telecommunications.
Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS): A mechanism commonly included in trade agreements that allows an investor to sue a foreign government if its investments are harmed by government policy.
Trade Facilitation: Measures that simplify and streamline customs procedures and reduce barriers to trade.
Domestic Regulations: Regulations imposed by a country on its own industries, which can affect trade with other countries.
Trade Remedies: Actions taken by a country to restrict imports or protect its domestic industries.
Environmental and Labor Standards: Standards related to the environment and labor conditions that can be included in trade agreements.
Regional Trade Agreements (RTAs): Agreements between countries within a specific geographical region, such as the European Union or the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).
Bilateral free trade agreement: This is an agreement between two countries to reduce trade barriers such as tariffs and quotas.
Multilateral free trade agreement: This agreement involves multiple countries and includes provisions for reducing trade barriers and creating common rules for trade.
Regional free trade agreement: This agreement focuses on promoting trade within a specific region, such as the European Union or the North American Free Trade Agreement.
Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA): This agreement seeks to strengthen economic ties by reducing trade barriers, promoting trade in services, and enhancing investment flows.
Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA): This agreement focuses on enhancing economic cooperation between developing countries and developed countries, usually offering preferential treatment to the developing country.
Preferential Trade Agreement (PTA): This agreement grants preferential treatment to a specific group of goods from a particular country, preferential tariffs or quotas on certain goods, or other trade and investment benefits.
Free Trade Area (FTA): This agreement seeks to reduce or eliminate trade barriers between countries, allowing different goods to be traded without tariffs or quotas.
Customs Union: This is an agreement to establish common external tariffs on goods imported from non-member countries, while permitting free trade between member countries.
Common Market: This is an agreement that establishes free movement of goods, services, capital, and labor between member countries, creating a common market within the region.
Economic and Monetary Union: This agreement establishes a single currency and monetary policy among member countries, and includes measures for coordinating economic policies and regulations.
"There are two types of trade agreements: bilateral and multilateral."
"Multilateral trade agreements are agreements among three or more countries, and are the most difficult to negotiate and agree."
"FTAs, a form of trade pacts, determine the tariffs and duties that countries impose on imports and exports with the goal of reducing or eliminating trade barriers."
"Such agreements usually 'center on a chapter providing for preferential tariff treatment', but they also often 'include clauses on trade facilitation and rule-making in areas such as investment, intellectual property, government procurement, technical standards, and sanitary and phytosanitary issues'."
"Both types of trading bloc have internal arrangements which parties conclude in order to liberalize and facilitate trade among themselves. The crucial difference between customs unions and free-trade areas is their approach to third parties."
"While a customs union requires all parties to establish and maintain identical external tariffs with regard to trade with non-parties."
"Parties to a free-trade area are not subject to such a requirement."
"Instead, they may establish and maintain whatever tariff regime applying to imports from non-parties as they deem necessary."
"In a free-trade area without harmonized external tariffs, to eliminate the risk of trade deflection, parties will adopt a system of preferential rules of origin."
"The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT 1994) originally defined free-trade agreements to include only trade in goods."
"An agreement with a similar purpose, i.e., to enhance liberalization of trade in services, is named under Article V of the General Agreement on Trade in Service (GATS) as an 'economic integration agreement'."
"However, in practice, the term is now widely used in political science, diplomacy, and economics to refer to agreements covering not only goods but also services and even investment."
"Environmental provisions have also become increasingly common in international investment agreements, like FTAs."
"Such agreements usually 'include clauses on trade facilitation and rule-making in areas such as investment, intellectual property, government procurement, technical standards, and sanitary and phytosanitary issues'."
"Multilateral trade agreements are agreements among three or more countries."
"Such agreements usually 'include clauses on trade facilitation and rule-making in areas such as investment, intellectual property, government procurement, technical standards, and sanitary and phytosanitary issues'."
"In a free-trade area without harmonized external tariffs, to eliminate the risk of trade deflection, parties will adopt a system of preferential rules of origin."
"An agreement with a similar purpose, i.e., to enhance liberalization of trade in services, is named under Article V of the General Agreement on Trade in Service (GATS) as an 'economic integration agreement'."
"Environmental provisions have also become increasingly common in international investment agreements, like FTAs."