The WTO and the Spaghetti Bowl of Free Trade Agreements: Four Proposals for Moving Forward

The WTO is a multilateral framework in which more than 160 countries engage in negotiations to reduce tariffs and other trade barriers among themselves. Several agreements contain the rules governing international trade in the WTO. Nothing in the WTO agreements, or its predecessor, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), prevents countries from entering into other, smaller trade arrangements in addition to the WTO. These arrangements take several forms: they can be free trade agreements (FTAs), preferential trade agreements (PTAs) or regional trade agreements (RTAs). Essentially, these different types of agreements create miniature trade regimes that link countries in a number of ways. It has been suggested that a world map showing the plethora of trading relationships would resemble a spaghetti bowl.2