This non-traditional panel will bring together academic experts and policy-makers to discuss and challenge existing conceptualisations of trade policy instruments.The roundtable will include three paper presentations which relate to conceptualising the trade-sustainability-security nexus and two reflections from an EU policy-maker and an NI business association. The topic is particularly relevant due to the proliferation of unilateral action by the EU and other economies and the growing need to understand and analyse their commonalities and differences. After starting with a conceptual paper, the roundtable will zoom in on two European instruments in particular: the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) and the Anti-Coercion Instrument (ACI).

This roundtable is organised by the UACES-supported TIER network, which consists of policy professionals and academics, to bridge the discussion across the two spaces.

Decades-long mobilization for trade justice and the more recent resurgence of economic nationalism have made so-called “free” or “deep” trade agreements (FTAs) unpopular on both sides of the Atlantic, if not virtually taboo, as witnessed by US decisionmakers’ reference to “partnerships,” (e.g. Transpacific Trade Partnership and more recently, the Americas Partnership for Economic Security) “agreements” (US-Mexico-Canada agreement or USMCA) or “frameworks” (e.g. Indo-Pacific Economic Framework). The “de-FTA-zation” of trade policy is not only a discursive and framing process designed to obscure continuity in trade policymaking, but is, in effect, a departure from the cycle of mega trade agreements of the previous decade, and one concretely at work in both the US and the EU (Velut, 2022). This concept paper aims to unpack this process by mapping out the proliferation of sectoral agreements, sustainability initiatives, autonomous measures and other kinds of executive agreements or “mini-deals” (Claussen, 2022). The objective is to understand the roots and implications of this phenomenon through a multi-faceted analytical framework taking into consideration discursive and institutional processes (at both negotiating and implementation/enforcement stages), stakeholder input, WTO compatibility and geopolitical motives among others. The argument is that new security and sustainability imperatives have converged on trade policies to create new frictions and engender a new trade-sustainability-security trilemma that is likely to further divide trade policy stakeholders on both sides of the Atlantic and beyond.

The European Union (EU) trade policy is adapting to an international context in which economic coercion is present. The Commission has proposed the creation of a new trade instrument -the Anti-Coercion Instrument (ACI)- to respond to such threats. This paper adds to the EU and comparative trade policy literature by analyzing the EU’s proposed ACI, comparing it with the section 301 of the 1974 US Trade Act and its 1988 addition, USC 2420, “Super 301”. The objective is to assess how ACI enhances the ways in which the EU, primarily the Commission, can engage in geopolitic and geoeconomics through EU trade policy. In other words, how the ACI enables the Commission to pursue interests and values beyond purely commercial considerations.

The theoretical possibility of border carbon adjustments (BCAs) is one step closer to becoming an empirical reality as the European Union (EU) negotiators have reached a provisional agreement on their BCA mechanism, known as the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM).This paper argues that in an attempt to maintain competitiveness, the EU CBAM will drive trading partners to implement their own BCAs creating a domino effect in the trade landscape where states attempt to implement BCAs alongside trading partners. Evidenced by Senator Coons and Representative Peters 2021 BCA proposal in the United States and the Canadian Government’s exploration of BCAs, states are actively searching for ways to ensure they are not unprepared for the implementation of BCAs and stuck facing the negative consequences of reduced competitiveness. Due to the potential for a loss of competitiveness, the EU CBAM and BCAs, more broadly, could have a substantial and disproportionate impact on countries that do not yet have carbon taxes or policies implemented that can react to BCAs. A group of countries at high risk of feeling negative impacts are Least Developed Countries (LDCs). However, there are two options. An awareness of BCA consequences can either provide the impetus for an acceleration of greening up LDC industries, or it can become a venue where global calls for a just transition fail and LDC are cut out of global supply chains.

This paper will survey how the EU CBAM may disproportionately impact LDC trading

partners and how this may be replicated in other BCA proposals. Then, this paper will explore what the critical steps are for LDCs to ensure that they are not eliminated from trade relationships and global supply chains. Current conversations regarding the EU CBAM predominately concern what industries and corporations within the EU must do to prepare to comply with the reporting obligations during the transition period and when the CBAM is fully operational. However, the CBAM will not only impact and require action from internal EU industries.

The presentation will include reflections on EU policy making and we will discuss the issue of negotiation, implementation and enforcement of trade provisions. It will offer a reflection on the other presentations and outline the position of the European Commission in navigating the nexus between trade, sustainability, and security from an analytical and every-day policy making point of view. The presentation will include reflections on:

1) Information on current trade talks in view of the geoeconomic and geopolitical climate

2) Approach of the EU to enforcing trade rules both within the EU itself and in the EU's export markets

3) Analytical work in the European Commission on trade-sustainability-security