Word: fta
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...countries can reach a deal on a free trade agreement. For a host of reasons, mainly political, it's unlikely that the two teams of negotiators will be doing high-fives by the weekend. After a year of serious negotiations over the complicated chapters that comprise a FTA, and longer still if you consider the soft diplomacy involved, the momentum seems destined to stall. The obvious goodwill between leaders President Bush and Prime Minister John Howard will not be enough to overcome either the heavy-duty handiwork of America's farm and pharmaceutical lobbies or the time constraints on Congress...
...some ways it is fanciful to think Australia should be pursuing a FTA with the U.S. It's true that opening up access for Australia's exporters to the world's largest economy could bring, as Vaile is prone to remind voters, $A4 billion a year to the bottom line of the local economy. It's also true that allies Bush and Howard are free traders, and that the relationship between the two countries has rarely been better. Yet the enormous economic and political disparities between the two countries prompts questions about what kind of deal could benefit both...