Embedding security into free trade: the case of the United States-Singapore free trade agreement

In: Contemporary Southeast Asia, Band 29, Heft 1, S. 1-32

Abstract

The article is about the motivations and reasons for the United States and Singapore to sign an FTA, prompted by little trade expansion and snail-paced financial market opening within ASEAN, the Japanese-led resistance to the full flowering of APEC, the chronic breakdown of the WTO's recent trade liberalization negotiations, the structural changes in Singapore's economy, as well as unsettled security environment in Southeast Asia. Soon after the FTA went into effect, Singapore and the United States signed a strategic ("defence") partnership agreement. Since 9/11, the two countries have found strong complementarity in each other's strategic visions - how to define the evolving security landscape for Southeast Asia, how to coordinate security responses for the region, and how bilateralism can be a viable fall-back position in cross-border trade and finance. The article also examines the inadequacies of the theories of old regionalism and suggests different ways to theorize new regionalism, identifying the domestic, regional, and global factors which have led to the paradigm shift in Singapore's strategy for future growth and survival and which have shaped the future East Asian policy of the United States. (Contemp Southeast Asia/GIGA)