This paper evaluates a possible US-SACU (Southern African Customs Union) free trade agreement as part of a US approach to new preferential trade agreements characterized by the term competitive liberalization.' This is the idea that competition among large countries (US/EU) to negotiate preferential arrangements with smaller countries or regions will lower barriers, and eventually add fresh impulse to new multilateral WTO negotiations. In commercial policy terms, the US interest in such an arrangement lies in improved access to a smaller but more protected market where the EU already has preferential arrangements, and the SACU interest lies in improved access to a much larger but less protected market. There is also a SACU interest in weakening the trade restrictive effects of MFA quotas in the US for apparel imports. The risk of entrapment in extremely complex rules of origin arrangements which at times close markets (as in NAFTA and other US bilaterals) is a concern for SACU. Also, gains to SACU may be only temporary because of the US proposal to eliminate non agricultural tariffs entirely in the WTO by 2015. In key non commodity trade areas (services, investment, intellectual property, temporary entry of business persons), if other US bilaterals are any guide most liberalization requested will be heavily asymmetric if not unilateral on the SACU side. SACU does not currently cover any of these items since it is only a customs union, and prior negotiation will be needed among SACU countries. SACU also clearly has an interest in coordinating its negotiation with other US bilateral negotiating partners. These and other barriers to negotiation (including negotiating capacity constraints in several SACU members) will influence the outcome of negotiations.
Download Info
To download:
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the
proper application to
view it first. Information about this may be contained
in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read
the IDEAS help
page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS
site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version under "Related research" (further below) or search for a different version of it.
Publisher Info
Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number
10168.
Length: Date of creation: Dec 2003 Date of revision: Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:10168
Note: ITI Contact details of provider: Postal: National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A. Phone: 617-868-3900 Email: Web page: http://www.nber.org More information through EDIRC
For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its listing, contact: ().
Related research
Keywords:
Find related papers by JEL classification: F0 - International Economics - - General F1 - International Economics - - Trade
This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:
References listed on IDEAS Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
Craig Burnside & David Dollar, 2000.
"Aid, Policies, and Growth,"
American Economic Review,
American Economic Association, vol. 90(4), pages 847-868, September.
[Downloadable!] (restricted)
Other versions:
Cited by: (explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)
Burfisher, Mary E. & Robinson, Sherman & Thierfelder, Karen, 2004.
"Regionalism,"
MTID discussion papers
65, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
[Downloadable!]