Negotiating free trade a Department of Economics, Harvard University, Littauer 231, Cambridge, MA 02138, United States b Department of Economics, Harvard University, Littauer 319, Cambridge, MA 02138, United States sequentially negotiate free trade agreements with subsets of countries or engage in simultaneous multilateral Negotiating free-trade agreements: a guide i Preface This guide is a practical introduction to the negotiation of free-trade agreements. It is aimed particularly at those who may be involved in such negotiations for the first time, and it seeks to explain the main negotiating steps needed to arrive at an agreement and to make it enter into force. This section contains news and analysis about bilateral and regional free trade and investment agreements under negotiation. These agreements can take a number of forms: free trade agreements (FTAs), sometimes called Economic Partnership Agreements or Association Agreements bilateral investment treaties (BITs), sometimes called Investment Protection and Promotion Agreements trade and