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"Multilateral Trade Agreement"

By Kimberly Amadeo, About.com

Definition: Multilateral trade agreements are between many nations at one time. For this reason, they are very complicated to negotiate, but are very powerful once all parties sign the agreement. The primary benefit of multilateral agreements is that all nations get treated equally, and so it levels the playing field, especially for poorer nations that are less competitive by nature.

Examples: The Doha round of trade agreements is a multilateral trade agreement between all 149 members of the World Trade Organization.

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