NationStates Jolt Archive

I'm sorry, I'll admit I haven't got a draft at the moment (I'm worrying about open skies at the moment), but the basic idea of Most Favoured Nation Status is the NSUN would require members to grant one another most favoured nation status, which is usually a trade agreement between two nations providing that each will extend to the other any trading privileges it extends to third nations.
Therefore, if Cobdenia decided to lower it's tarriffs on imports of uranium from Enn, the same agreement would extend to St Uriel, Freedonia and all UN members.
I hope this makes sense; and if anyone whose knowledge of economics isn't as forgetten as mine could help me, please do!

EDIT: Of course, it would make exclusions for negotiations within registered free trade blocks and customs unions, and in case of war or economic sanctions!

What about xenophobic nations like Fatus Maximus who don't trade, and don't particularly want to trade, with other nations? We enjoy being self-sufficient. Forcing trade upon us opens the door to use being dependent upon another nation's goods.

Forcing trade upon us opens the door to use being dependent upon another nation's goods.
You can still be self sufficient.
It's only if you open trade up or reduce barriers for one nation, you have to do it for the rest.
Don't want to trade? Don't enter into any bilateral agreements.

Here's a draft


Most Favoured Nation Status
Free Trade: Significant

EMPHASISING that multilateral trade agreements have the ability of being unduly discriminatory to any and all nations not included in these agreements;

DEFINES “Most-favoured-nation status” as a trade agreement between two or more nations providing that each will extend to the other any trading privileges it extends to third nations;

DESIGNATES most-favoured-nation status to all UN member states;

PROCLAIMS that, as all UN nations would hold most-favoured-nation status, nations will henceforth unable to discriminate between goods on the basis of their origin or destination;

ACCEPTS that most-favoured-nation status of a UN nation must be revoked in the case of war and UN economic sanctions;

NOTES that most-favoured-nation status is not valid for any agreements made whithin a minimum trilateral registered free trade area and/or customs union.

Not too keen on this. It is useful to us to be able to discriminate in trade, often as a form of protest, even if it is somewhat symbolic. Plus, we sometimes need to be able to protect the economic well-being of our citizens, for instance from having our market flooded with subsidised agricultural surpluses from richer nations. That requires sometimes being able to have different arrangements with different countries.

You could get round the problem by 'balancing' your arrangement. If previously, in a bilateral arrangement, you would have reduced your agricultural product tariff to 5%, you could retain the same level for imports (and preventing the flooding of your market) by instead having a 15% tariff.
Another way around it is by forming an FTA or a customs union with at least two other countries.
EDIT: OoC: This idea was thought up by the chap (Sir Richard Cobden) I named my country after, hence I am quite keen to push it. It is also one of the main principles of the WTO.

Myopia, you can solve the problem by giving the status to me. I don't trade that often, so unless you have access to something I need I doubt we'll trade.

You could get round the problem by 'balancing' your arrangement. If previously, in a bilateral arrangement, you would have reduced your agricultural product tariff to 5%, you could retain the same level for imports (and preventing the flooding of your market) by instead having a 15% tariff.

Sorry, it's late here and I don't actually understand what you mean.

As to the exception made for at least trilateral unions between nations, if I had such an agreement with, say, DLE and Cobdenia, then wanted to make an agreement with Enn, wouldn't I still have to bring Enn into a union, or extend the agreement to all other nations in the UN?

Basically, I just don't like this idea. I'm all for the principle that people shouldn't be penalised in terms of well-being for living on one side of a border or another, but it's not that simple. Sometimes allowing trade with a nation might help to reinforce a domestic situation or regime that we consider oppressive. In other cases, discriminating between nations is the lesser of two evils.

I'm sorry, but I really must voice my vehement dislike of this resolution. See, I'm a fan of free trade, or nearly free trade, between nations that are in an economic situation similar to my own. So I lower tariffs on goods imported from such nations, and expect them to do the same, and such a situation becomes mutually beneficial. However I am a protectionist as far as smaller or larger nations are concerned, because when trading freely with a nation whose size is dissimilar to your own, the benefits are not mutual. If I were forced to open up to all nations in the same way I open up to certain nations, businesses within Rogue Newbie would certainly outsource jobs and purchase resources from nations who could supply them cheaply, and nations who I formerly traded with would suffer. The same would happen to me when my partner nations had to open up to others. My tariffs are based on a nation by nation basis, and to change that would cause both Rogue Newbie and our trading partners to suffer.

Sorry, but we wish to retain the right to discriminate on the basis of origin. For instance, we avoid trading with nations that deal in armaments, if at all possible.

Mathieu Vergniaud
Deputy Speaker to the UN

See, I'm a fan of free trade, or nearly free trade, between nations that are in an economic situation similar to my own.
Simple. Form an FTA or Customs Union with those nations and you wont need to worry.

What I could do to address these concerns is dispose of the UN in "UN sanctions" so it says in case of war or sanctions, so you could put sanctions on all the countries you don't want to trade with, thereby giving you the choice of dealing with them the same as you do with others, or not dealing with them at all, but you couldn't say 5% for Myopia, 15% for Rogue Newbie; 30% for Ecopoeia, etc. You could only say 15% for everyone, except for Ecotopeia, who we don't like so we wont trade with them at all. (Sorry, not picking on you Ecopoeia; just needed a name).


There are lots of ways around the problems that are suggested. A (very bad); Cobdenia needs to import cars, and Ecopoeia and Myopia supply cars. However, imagine we have some reason to dislike Ecopoeia; what we could do is look for differences in Ecopoeian and Myopian cars and discriminate on that. For example, Ecopoeian cars might all be blue, Myopian green. So, we put higher tariffs on blue cars than we do for green cars.

So what you are proposing is an opt-out free trade system? In which everyone would be trading freely unless they imposed tariffs on someone. Umm, I'm not sure about this, cos it seems a bit like mandating that everyone must like hats, unless they choose not to, in which case they must register their dissaproval of hats. Sorry about the metaphor, but it does seem somewhat pointless.