Bhagwati shines a critical light on preferential trade agreements, revealing how the rapid spread of PTAs endangers the world trading system.

Jagdish Bhagwati, one of America’s leading economic and political analysts of international trade policy, has just completed a new book, Termites in the Trading System: How Preferential Agreements Undermine Free Trade (Oxford University Press/Council on Foreign Relations, June 2008). The theme and conclusions of Bhagwati’s study will be discussed at...

In the wake of this week's progress on advancing the U.S.-Colombia free trade agreement, most of the U.S. criticism, naturally, argues that the agreement is not in the U.S. interest.

Should we have free trade in America? Ifwe do, how should we trade freely?