The World Trade Agreement talks about the similarities, differences and choices of 001 RTA and FTA titles

Starting with this section, we enter a new round of keynote lectures on the theme of "World Trade Agreement Talks".

RTA is short for Regional Trade Agreement, which is short for Free Trade Agreement.

RTA/FTA is a trade relations agreement signed between independent customs territories (in most cases as a nation-state), and "independent customs territories" are a form of subject of international law.

The emergence and continuous updating of regional trade agreements (RTAs)/free trade agreements (FTAs) (plus s, meaning to refer to multiple of them) has had a significant impact on the overall pattern of world international trade relations and even on the differentiation and reorganization of international political relations of countries.

This theme lecture will work with the readers to go deep into the details, appreciate the historical trend and formation mechanism of the formation of the world RTAs/FTAs pattern, taste the process and experience of the actions of some typical tariff subjects in the world, interpret the intentions of the parties contained in several typical RTA/FTA cases, and look forward to the future trend of the world RTAs/FTAs pattern in the future.

About this section. This section begins with a reading of RTA and FTA salutations, how they are used in various contexts, and summarizes and comments on their semantics in order to facilitate the writing of subsequent sections of this lecture.

1. About RTA.

RTA is the abbreviation of the English Regional Trade Agreement, which is translated into the Regional Trade Agreement, or the Regional Trade Agreement for short.

In the documents of various multilateral organizations now, regional trade agreements are in the context of extension, including free trade agreements (FTAs), Partial Scope Agreements (PSAs), preferential trade agreements (PTA), customs union agreements (CUAs), and economic partnership agreements (EPAs) with trade terms.

According to this understanding, RTA covers FTA, and FTA is only one of the RTA.

2. About FTAs.

FTA is the abbreviation of the English Free Trade Agreement, which is translated as free trade agreement in China, or short for free trade agreement.

FTA can also be understood as Free Trade Area, or Free Trade Area, which refers to a large region consisting of several customs territories that have signed a Free Trade Agreement (FTA).

It should be noted that most of the so-called "free trade agreements" in the world today are not "free" in the complete and thorough sense, that is, the areas in which certain products are usually demarcated, or excluded from the so-called "freedom"; or even if most industrial fields are called "free", it may only be "trade freedom" to some extent.

From this point of view, the so-called "free trade agreement" in today's world should actually include both the Customs Union Agreement (CUA) that is close to achieving free trade, and the free trade agreement (FTA), preferential trade agreement (PTA), and economic partnership agreement (EPA) that are only to a certain extent.

Furthermore, if you look closely, in fact, all regional trade agreements (RTAs) have promoted trade liberalization to a certain extent than before the signing of the contract, so they can also be called "free trade agreements (FTAs)."

3. Choice of salutation in literature research and public administration.

In practical public administration practice, usually, a trade agreement, usually agreed by the signatory parties, chooses one of the FTA (Free Trade Agreement), CUA (Customs Union Agreement), PTA (Preferential Trade Agreement), EIA (Economic Integration Agreement) as its name and reports it to the World Trade Organization (WTO).

Usually, which category a certain agreement belongs to is also defined in this process.

As for whether a certain FTA reported is "completely free", no one has delved too deeply, as long as it is a certain degree of freedom than the original trade relationship, even a little, it can be.

Then, from the perspective of public administration by the WTO and other multilateral organizations, these agreements are first one of FTA, CUA, PTA, EIA, and all belong to regional trade agreements (RTAs).

Yes, from the perspective of the management practices of multilateral organizations in the world, RTAs include FTAs (Free Trade Agreements), CUAs (Customs Union Agreements), PTA (Preferential Trade Agreements), and EIA (Economic Integration Agreements).

In literature research and civil discussion, because the above various agreements involve to a certain extent to promote trade liberalization, this leads to the free trade agreements (FTAs) mentioned on many occasions, and may also include a certain item that has been "named" CUA, PSA, PTA, EPA, EIA.

Yes, in the broad sense of FTA, CUA (Customs Union Agreement), PSA (Partial Free Trade Agreement), PTA (Preferential Trade Agreement), EPA (Economic Partnership Agreement), EIA (Economic Integration Agreement) can also be regarded as FTAs to a certain extent.

However, it should also be noted that even these various types of agreements can be described as FTAs; but in any case, whether it is public administration, literature research or civil discussion, RTA is usually not said to be a type of FTAs.

4. Summary.

If it is a general reference, it is okay to call it a free trade agreement (FTA) or a regional trade agreement (RTA) for a certain extent signed between a number of tariff subjects outside the multilateral context.

If it refers to a specific trade agreement, which one is called FTA, CUA, PSA, PTA, EPA, EIA, it should be based on their own choices filed with the WTO and the WTO's determination.

It is generally believed that FTA is a class of RTAs, but in most cases, RTA is not considered to be a class of RTAs.

5. Follow-up

So, what kind of development trend has the world's RTAs/FTAs experienced in terms of quantity, and see the next section.