CBP oversees the implementation, compliance and enforcement of trade agreements that provide preferential trading opportunities for businesses and consumers. These agreements can take many forms, but they all share one important feature: reciprocity. Reciprocity is a principle requiring all participants to the agreement to lower barriers to each other’s goods and services to at least as great an extent as they lower them to outsiders. Without this constraint, the gains from a concession to one country’s producers or consumers would not be offset by the losses of other countries’ producers or consumers.
Trade agreements can be multilateral, bilateral or regional. The United States has a series of free trade agreements (FTAs) and Bilateral Investment Treaties (BITs) that help protect private investment, develop market-oriented policies in partner countries and promote U.S. exports. Detailed descriptions and texts of these and other trade agreements can be found on our resource center.
Multilateral trade agreements such as the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and its successor, the World Trade Organization, have led to substantial reductions in tariff barriers to global trade. These reductions, in turn, have led to significant increases in worldwide trade and economic growth. They also have provided an incentive for recalcitrant governments to reduce their own barriers and thus hasten the process of global trade liberalization. The widely accepted norm is that any preferential treatment granted to a foreign country under a trade agreement should apply to all markets covered by the agreement, including nontariff barriers such as regulatory requirements for things like vehicle crash tests and environmental standards. This norm has recently come under attack from antiglobalization activists.