DOH?/HA!:

A dry run for a Japan-US FTA (Hisane Masaki, 4/27/07, Asia Times)

Japan has kicked off negotiations with Australia on concluding a free-trade agreement (FTA), in a desperate bid to play catch-up in the ever-intensifying regional and global FTA race. The negotiations with Australia, launched this week, are particularly significant because they are Japan's first with a major agricultural exporter and are widely seen as a dry run for possible future talks with the United States. [...]

Pressure has been growing from other domestic industries for Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's government to move toward FTA negotiations with the US as soon as possible. The pressure has increased since the US and South Korea reached an agreement early this month.

Abe is expected to raise the possibility of concluding an FTA with the US in his talks with President George W Bush in Washington on Friday during a two-day US visit, his first since taking office last September.

Japan's recently revved-up FTA drive has been largely fueled by an intensifying rivalry with China, a rapidly ascending economic as well as military power, over leadership in regional economic integration - and political clout - and also by increasingly tough global competition for oil, gas and other resources.

If the US and its Anglosphere/Axis of Good partners conclude trade treaties, what choice do the countries holding up the Doha Round have but to join the fun?

Posted by Orrin Judd at April 26, 2007 7:08 AM