Walking and chewing gum at the same time: Australia's free trade area strategy. [Paper based on an Invited Paper presented to the Trade Plenary at the Conference of the Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society in Canberra, February, 2002.]

The pursuit of free trade area agreements (FTAs), according to some, does not impede the multilateral trade negotiations process. It is argued to the contrary in the present paper that the FTA approach does impede the multilateral one. Comments are offered on common approaches to the analysis of the impact of FTAs, on the reasons why, despite concerns evident in these comments, the FTA strategy has become so popular, and on ways out of a dilemma of FTA proliferation, or at least ways to avoid the risks associated with it.