Trade agreement

[1] Trade agreements therefore make misunderstandings less likely, and create confidence on both sides that cheating will be punished; this increases the likelihood of long-term cooperation.

[1] An international organization, such as the IMF, can further incentivize cooperation by monitoring compliance with agreements and reporting third countries of the violations.

[1] Trade pacts are frequently politically contentious, as they might pit the winners and losers of an agreement against each other.

Aside from their provisions on reducing tariffs, contentious issues in modern free trade agreements may revolve around regulatory harmonization on issues such as intellectual property regulations, labour rights,[2] and environmental and safety regulations.

[6] A trade agreement signed between more than two sides (typically neighboring or in the same region) is classified as multilateral.

The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was established on January 1, 1989, between the United States, Canada, and Mexico.

The Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) was established in 2015 and currently consists of five member states: Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Russia.

[10] The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) was formed in 1967 between the countries of Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand.

Between 1948 and 1994, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), the predecessor to the WTO, received 124 notifications.