ABSTRACT
This chapter offers a wide perspective on trade disputes where agricultural trade negotiations play a crucial role. It shows that, while the United States and Europe share a mutual interest in the strengthening of a multilateral trading system, they are also facing the risk that the trend towards regional trade agreements may push in the opposite direction by breaking the global system into conflicting blocs. The chapter also shows that the establishment of a multilateral regime is made more difficult by the fact that people are no longer in a situation of hegemony, that is, a situation in which the cost of providing international public goods is more than proportionally borne by the larger and most powerful state. It deals with the conditions that are required for the provision of international public goods without hegemony. The chapter also deals with the difficulty of treating Europe as a single and unified actor.
