And of course, these rules have sometimes been designed so that the number of potential suppliers is deliberately kept at a low level, often for valid reasons, such as for example. B the requirements that physicians be properly trained. Even rules in areas such as visas can affect trade in services by limiting the ability of customers to travel to other countries or the ability of suppliers to travel to consumer countries. U.S. free trade agreements all build on WTO rules and often repeat them in the agreement, although they go beyond WTO rules in a number of areas. The U.S. agreements have gone from a brief and simple 1985 agreement with Israel to more complex and extensive recent agreements. However, the real genius of the Uruguay Round negotiators was to categorize trade in services according to its delivery and they defined four “modes” among which trade in services takes place. Mode 1 is when the service is exported directly to the consumer in another country via the internet, mail or other delivery mechanism. An example could be professional tax advice made available to a consumer in another country via the internet. Although the mandate agreed in Doha in 2001 provides the general parameters for the negotiations, a number of issues have not yet been resolved.
In particular, the European Union wanted the negotiations to include investment, competition policy, public procurement and trade restriction procedures. However, in view of the strong opposition of developing countries at the 2003 Ministerial Conference, it was agreed that only negotiations on improving customs procedures (so-called “trade facilities”) would be included in the Doha Round and that investment, competition policy and government procurement would be removed from the agenda. Another reason for the failure of the Doha Round is that, from the outset, it has not addressed some of the main trade issues, such as investment, currency manipulation and the treatment of state-owned enterprises. The focus on development was probably out of place, as other international organizations, such as the World Bank, are more important actors in promoting economic development. As a result, major economic interests in the US have not been deeply supportive of a successful outcome and no major country has felt that the package agreed up to 2008 is attractive enough to warrant larger concessions. Most of the U.S. trade competitors aggressively negotiate free trade agreements. For example, the EU has negotiated or negotiated agreements with Albania, Algeria, Canada, Chile, Egypt, India, Israel, Jordan, South Korea, Lebanon, Mexico, Morocco, Tunisia, Turkey and Ukraine.
[34] 4. . . .