A free trade agreement can be a trade treaty between two countries
or, as in this case, among multiple countries, which eases the movement of
goods and services between these countries. A Western Hemisphere Free Trade
Deal could be formed to create economic growth in multiple countries, by
eliminating barriers for trade, and thus help the cross-border movement of goods
and services. This trade deal would be very similar to the main free trade deal
in the Americas,  the North American Free
Trade Agreement or NAFTA. NAFTA was created in 1994 and is among Mexico,
Canada, and the United States. Like NAFTA, a free trade deal that could be
created today would eliminate most tariffs on imports and exports of the
countries involved in such a trade deal. NAFTA has benefitted the participating
countries enormously. Due to NAFTA, North American trade has tripled. Like
NAFTA, this free trade deal could accelerate economic growth and rising living
standards in the economies of the countries that would be a part of this trade
deal, especially the weaker economies of countries apart of this deal. Bolivia
sees this Free Trade Deal as an opportunity for increased economic growth
creating jobs and rising living standards for all participating countries.

Bolivia also believes this deal could expand its own trading system and could
create new trading opportunities with new countries Bolivia has not traded with
before.  Bolivia therefore believes that the UN should facilitate the
formation of a Western Hemisphere Free Trade Deal.

Bolivia
and other participating countries could gain many economic opportunities from a
Western Hemisphere Free Trade Deal. Bolivia’s experience supports this as it has
been in multiple trade agreements over time such as the GATT, the CAN
agreement, and MERCOSUR. Bolivia entered these trade groups which all caused
its trade to increase dramatically since 1995 (Simoes.) Bolivia has benefitted
from these trade agreements greatly and seeks to join new trade agreements,
like this free trade deal which could be formed. To illustrate this, Bolivia’s
exports increased from $7.02 billion in 2010 to $9.1 billion in 2015, an increase
of 28%. Bolivia’s imports have increased from $6.15 billion to $9.7 billion
over the same period, a 58% increase (Simoes.) These are two extremely large
increases, especially when it comes to Bolivia’s economy. Bolivia only looks to
grow their trade moving forward and this deal will facilitate Bolivia’s recent
trade growth and help its economy. Helping Bolivia’s economy will help the
living conditions of the citizens of Bolivia. This free trade deal will also
help other countries’ economies as well. Bolivia sees this Western Hemisphere
Free Trade Deal as a large opportunity considering its recent trade growth and
would gladly take part in it. This trade deal could increase exports of silver,
tin, and coca. It could also increase imports of goods like cars and petroleum.

From Bolivia’s experience, trade agreements improve efficiency and innovation
of a country creating more opportunities and raising living standards.

Bolivia requests that the UN should facilitate the creation of a
Western Hemisphere Free Trade Deal. Creating a free trade deal will take effort
due to the fact it will be a multilateral trade agreement. A multilateral trade
agreement means that multiple countries will take part in this deal. This makes
a multilateral agreement more complicated than a bilateral agreement because
this agreement must fulfill all of the various countries’ needs. For example,
one agreement of this trade deal might be the lowering of tariffs to 5% or
lower. If one country apart of the deal disagrees with this plan, we must
decide on a new agreement about tariffs that each country within the trade deal
agrees with completely. To stop this from happening, we must analyze potential
partners in the trade deal and find out what all of these countries will agree
on to create the deal. The formation of this trade deal will become much
simpler as long as we identify what every country agrees on and focus on those
ideas. This trade deal is extremely important because it would accelerate the
growth of the economy of Bolivia and the economies of other countries who
decide to take part in it. If this trade deal passes, Bolivia predicts that
this trade deal will open the door for more trading between multiple countries
in the Western Hemisphere.