I think the ones we have negotiated are better described as preferential trade deals.
Quote Productivity Commission release in 2015:
- Slow progress in multilateral trade reform has accelerated preferential agreement making.
- Preferential trade agreements add to the complexity and cost of international trade through substantially different sets of rules of origin, varying coverage of services and potentially costly intellectual property protections and investor-state dispute settlement provisions.
- The emerging and growing potential for trade preferences to impose net costs on the community presents a compelling case for the final text of an agreement to be rigorously analysed before signing. Analysis undertaken for the Japan-Australia agreement reveals a wide and concerning gap compared to the Commission's view of rigorous assessment.
