This article discusses the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), the Regional Cooperative Economic Partnership (RCEP) and, in short, the third mega-free trade agreement, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), and comments on the progress (or lack thereof) made in recent years with each of them. Only the TPP negotiations have been completed and, in the best circumstances, the TPP will not be in effect for all 12 parties for at least several years. The success of the RCEP and TTIP negotiations remains uncertain. Nevertheless, given the failure of the WTO`s Doha Round, these mega-trade agreements are expected to set the standards and agenda for trade negotiations until the next decade. Everyone can be expected if they succeed in promoting exchanges between members and, possibly, facilitating the participation of small and medium-sized enterprises. Many Member States already have free trade agreements between them, but there are restrictions. The world of bilateral and multilateral trade agreements requires more than a few whiteboards to map them. RCEP is China`s first multilateral agreement, but the country has a series of bilateral trade agreements, including with Australia – a country that, along with New Zealand, has an agreement with any other country within RCEP. In these cases, countries with more developed bilateral agreements generally maintain deeper trade relations, while respecting the new uniform purchasing rules under RCEP. In this sense, RCEP further eliminates headaches for countries of origin in regional supply chains. Both CpTPP and RCEP are agreements that, judging by the location of membership, tend to head towards Asia.

The most important thing is that they do not concern the United States. The United States signed the Agreement between the United States, Mexico and Canada (USMCA), which recently replaced NAFTA, but the last free trade agreement was signed with Panama in 2007. The 14 free trade agreements concluded by the United States cover 20 countries, but only three of them are also members of RCEP. Free Trade Agreement. U.S. International Trade Administration Existing trade agreements in the United States. U.S. Department of State. While China already has a number of bilateral trade agreements, this is the first time it has signed a regional multilateral trade pact. Trade agreements are economically important and have a real impact if companies use them to access previously limited markets, but they are a political creation that has economic repercussions that are not normally visible immediately after their implementation.

The Regional Economic Partnership (RCEP) is not distinguished by the fact that it will take years to find out which countries and companies have benefited the most from this political agreement. 33 Arizona Journal of International and Comparative Law 57 (2016) International Political Economy: Trade Policy eJournal The main finding is that the United States could lose its global leadership in trade to nations in the Asia-Pacific region. Of course, this situation can be reversed – the door is still open to the CPTPP, for example for the US – and there are high hopes that a new Biden administration will do so. Whether or not this reversal will take place is another charged question facing the global economy in 2021. India was initially part of RCEP, but has since withdrawn. It should be noted that the door is open to the country to join later. The agreement covers about a third of the world`s population and almost a third of the world`s GDP.