Trade relations between Latin America, the U.S. and the EU

While Latin America’s trade with China is flourishing again, and China’s government is courting Latin America, the European Union risks being outpaced. This is demonstrated by new cooperation initiatives within the framework of the second China–CELAC forum, which took place in Santiago de Chile on 21–22 January 2018. By contrast, the third summit between the European Union and CELAC (Community of Latin American and Caribbean States), originally scheduled for October 2017, was postponed indefinitely. Europe should take the Chinese challenge in Latin America more seriously, and the European Union should engage more with Latin America and develop a clear strategy. Concluding and improving upon free trade and cooperation agreements with Latin America should be a high priority. Latin American and Caribbean governments are interested in creating a win-win situation and cooperating with both China and Europe. China is not displacing Europe in Latin America, but it is expanding into areas vacated by the European Union.

Prime Minister R.G. Menzies was often photographed smoking a cigar. While some journalists wondered what this did for his image, scholars have not yet examined the trade relationship that likely supported his habit. Cuba and Australia have traded since before World War II, the majority of Australian imports up to the mid-1960s having been cigar and tobacco products, a commodity for which Cuba is well-known. However, in the early 1960s, Australia came under increasing pressure from the United States (US) to cease trade with Cuba. After Fidel Castro’s rise to power in 1959, the US placed a trade embargo on Cuba to isolate it politically and economically. The Kennedy Administration expanded the embargo, making trade with Cuba extremely difficult for other countries. It considered politics and economics inseparable and expected its allies to agree. In contrast, Australia’s anti-communist Menzies Government deplored Castro’s Cuba but saw no reason to discontinue trade. Using newly declassified records, this paper examines the hostile diplomatic exchanges between the Kennedy Administration and the Menzies Government from 1961–63 over Australian-Cuban trade. In doing so, it provides insight into how the Government carefully managed its geo-economic and geo-strategic interests during Australia’s Cold War of the 1960s.

La literatura existente tiende, en su mayoría, a interpretar la firma del Acuerdo de Asociación con la Unión Europea de 1997 como un intento por parte de México para diversificar sus relaciones internacionales y reducir su dependencia con Estados Unidos. Inspirándose en Gramsci y la escuela francesa de la regulación, en esta nota se sugiere una interpretación alternativa e innovadora, viendo en esa iniciativa diplomática una respuesta indirecta a las limitaciones del Tratado de Libre Comercio de América del Norte (TLCAN) como estructura de gobernanza del comercio norteamericano. Después de un esbozo del marco teórico, se explica cómo los cambios en la estructura del régimen de acumulación norteamericano significaron que el tratado se volviera cada vez más disfuncional como modo de regulación. En la siguiente etapa de este análisis se mostrará cómo el Acuerdo con la Unión Europea confronta las limitaciones del TLCAN en el sentido de que es más sofisticado y efectivo como estructura de gobernanza. En las siguientes dos secciones de la nota se examina cómo la formación de un bloque histórico a favor de la reforma del TLCAN no ha sido posible y cómo a su vez se formó un bloque histórico a favor de un acuerdo más avanzado con la Unión Europea.

Resumen
El artículo aborda el proceso de integración europea, como una alternativa muy importante para la diversificación de nuestras relaciones exteriores, Nos ofrece un rápido recorrido desde la formación del Mercado Común Europeo, hasta la actual Unión Europea, señalando las principales características y contradicciones del mismo, así como las dificultades existentes entre sus miembros para el logro de sus objetivos. En la segunda parte se analizan las relaciones entre México y la Unión Europea y el modo cómo éstas, si bien están aún inexploradas, cuentan con grandes potencialidades para establecer nuevos marcos de cooperación, comercio, inversión y diálogo político.
Abstract
The anicle deals with the process of European integration as an important alternative for the diversification of Mexican foreign relations. It offers a birds eye view of the process entailing the creation of the European Common Market up to the establishment of the European Union. It underlines the latter's main traits and contradictions as well as the existing conflicts, among its members, for the accomplishment of its aims. The second part of the essay analyzes the relations between Mexico and the European Union which despite remaining still unexplored, have a vast potential in the establishment of frameworks for cooperation in the areas of commerce, investment, and political dialogue.

A study of the ITF's view of the Common Market and European Union, its predecessors and successors, through its leading bodies archives and interviews, as well as of its relations with its European section, the ETF (European Transportworkers Federation).

Taking into account the recent entry into force of the Strategic Partnership agreement between the EU and some
members of the Andean Community of Nations (Colombia and Peru), it is clear that the negotiating strategy
did begin as a bloc to bloc negotiation scheme which became a multi-party agreement. The aim of this paper
is examining the negotiating strategy given by the Member States of the Andean Community of Nations to the
Communitarian Andean Law since the announcement of the negotiations with the EU. Through a descriptive
methodology, the negotiation dynamics reached by the Andeans will be analyzed chronologically, as well as the
flexibility adopted by the Europeans. This paper is divided into three sections. The first one presents the main
reasons for the European and Andean integration, and the increase of economic regional trade agreements;
followed by a second section focused on the trade pillar analysis as part of the Strategic Partnership signed by
Colombia, Peru and the EU. The third section deals with negotiation dynamics of the commercial pillar between
the economic blocs and the flexibility of the Andean Communitarian Law will be discussed. Finally, the main
remarks and recommendations will be tackled.

Studies of the European Union's role in international policy negotiations typically focus either on trade agreements, where the Community often enjoys exclusive competence in negotiations, or on military and security accords, where Member States take the diplomatic lead in international talks. Between these extremes are a number of issue negotiations in which Community officials and Member State representatives speak jointly on behalf of the EU. We analyse one such ‘mixed competence’ case - the negotiations for a global biosafety protocol - to understand more about the EU's behaviour and bargaining power in such settings. We aim for explanatory parsimony by applying an existing model designed to predict EU bargaining power in international trade negotiations (Meunier, 2000). The analysis reveals that the trade model has considerable explanatory power for some of the outcomes found in the biosafety protocol negotiations, but incorrectly predicts that the EU will have no bargaining power. We then explore the sources of discrepancy between the model's predictions and our empirical results, thereby identifying some of the general differences between exclusive and mixed competence negotiations. We conclude by making suggestions for future model-building and by reflecting on some recent proposed changes that may affect the EU's bargaining power on the global stage.

To our dismay, the debt ceiling odyssey continues with the fiscal deal recently passed by Congress. The good news is that government reopened. The bad news is that there is no actual debt ceiling right now, and this stop-gap measure will only temporarily suspend enforcement of it.

For those intellectuals and economists who actually advocate the abolition of a debt ceiling altogether, the current state of affairs is actually sanguine news — it's carte blanche when it comes to government spending. No ceiling will exist, which means we will have no idea how much debt the federal government is going to rack up between now and Feb. 7, when limits are supposed to revert back into place and must, of course, be raised.

Our main concern is to conclude how South American regional integration blocks could develop relations in a specific legal frame of association agreements and how this fourth generation treaties, developed by the European Union, deal with third countries or groups of countries. More specifically, we are interested in knowing how legally bound regulations formulated in the three different pillars of these Agreements can be for integration processes or member states.

The second anniversary of Occupy Wall Street came and went last week with little media fanfare. The rapidly developing Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a massive U.S.-led trade agreement that includes a dozen Pacific Rim nations, also continues to fly under the media radar. The lackluster coverage of the TPP is easier to explain: the trade negotiations remain shrouded in secrecy.