Although globalization and the world trade regime have reduced the significance of distance between countries, within countries geography matters now more than ever. Inside countries’ borders, economic activities, such as production and employment, occur unevenly across space. As a result, international trade impacts parts of a country differently. Some areas benefit from rising trade, while others experience reductions in local wages and employment as a result of increased import competition. Because regions’ experience of globalization varies, public opinion about trade differs across geographic areas within countries. Voters living in regions advantaged by trade are more likely to support economic openness, while voters living in regions negatively impacted by trade are more skeptical of the benefits of globalization. The geographic disparities in public attitudes towards trade often align with salient political cleavages. As a result, debates over trade have become increasingly polarized in many countries, which may threaten states’ continued economic openness as well as their engagement with, and even support for, the world trade regime.

This paper reviews the trade agreement landscape and argues that the conventional understanding of trade agreements as encapsulated in the WTO Agreements is now outdated. This misperception about trade agreements is not just an institutional insufficiency. Concentration on those agreements has led many practitioners and commentators to underestimate the variable texture of the global trade agreement fabric. But these shortcomings have not inhibited states from concluding innovative alternatives to regulate and manage the cross-border movement of goods and services. As this paper shows, trade-related agreements that do not fit the perceived traditional mold have proliferated. Given these advances, more policy and scholarly attention is required. Accordingly, this paper serves as a roadmap for the accommodation of trade agreements within the WTO and as an agenda for additional research.