May 31, 2023: The Australia-UK Free Trade Agreement (A-UK FTA), negotiated and signed by the Morrison Coalition government, came into force today, with the lazy media reporting about its apparently wonderful benefits.
May 29, 2023: Trade Ministers from the 14 member countries of the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF) announced in Detroit on May 27 that they had “substantially completed” negotiations to create more diverse, secure and fair supply chains amongst themselves, known as Pillar II of the four Pillars of IPEF.
May 26, 2023: AFTINET has coordinated a letter endorsed by 28 community organisations expressing concerns about the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF) negotiations taking place in Detroit this weekend.
May 23, 2023: A coalition of US trade justice organisations rallied in Detroit on May 20 during the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) talks there, to highlight the Ministerial Meeting for the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF) set for May 27. They posed the rights of workers and the planet against corporate priority for profits in IPEF.
Ninety-five enthusiastic AFTINET supporters came out to Sydney's Cyprus Club for the 2023 Trade Justice Dinner on May 16 to support the campaigns that AFTINET organises for trade policy that promotes human rights, labour rights and environmental sustainability.
May 18, 2022: Eight prominent Democratic Congress members have written a letter to US Trade Representative Katherine Tai expressing deep concerns about the secrecy of proposals on digital trade in the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF ) negotiations.
May 9, 2023: An article from Project Syndicate reports that over the past year, France, Spain, the Netherlands, Germany, Poland, Luxembourg, Slovenia, and Denmark have all withdrawn from the Energy Charter Treaty (ECT), or announced their intention to do so. Italy left in 2016. The ECT includes Investor-State Dispute Settlement ISDS) rules.
May 8, 2023: The Implementation Agenda for the Strategic Economic Cooperation Arrangement (SECA) between Australia and Thailand (SECA) will sit alongside the existing Thai - Australia FTA agreed in 2005, which is not being reviewed. Instead the strategy will develop new areas of cooperation for expanding trade and investment.
May 8, 2023: Dozens of Democrat members of the House and Senate sent a letter on May 2, 2023, to US Trade Representative (USTR) Katherine Tai and Secretary of State Antony Blinken, asking the Biden administration to remove Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) provisions from existing and future trade and investment agreements.
May 4, 2023: Australians first heard about the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF) in March 2022, but Bloomberg reports that emails released to the US public this week show that the office of the US Trade Representative (USTR) was seeking the input of Amazon and Google from January 2022. The corporate lobbyists were all former USTR officials.