International law is a topic new to crabgrass, as is the current status and flux in trade deals. Secrecy, and the public interest vs big-money players running things is a worry. Dispute resolution, public or private?
Bilateral deals, Trump's thing, exist along with a WTO and lots of multilateral stuff, where pubic need to know can often be regarded as mushrooming the public. (Keep them in the dark and feed them shit.)
Those are meandering thought in taking on the idea of - looking at trade.
Where to start and how to proceed are unknowns so dig in and there is a ton or academic publishing and current status online "blurb" news.
First item, here, where some Senators worth more respect than others in 2015 wrote a short letter about TPP to a trade rep. The letter seems parallel to the considerations Crabgrass might post - reporting and opinion. The letter flags timely ideas still, with Trump and crew, cutting deals. Absent the four appendix pages, (which are important so review it), this is the letter:
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In Trump's bilateral deal world, where tariff threat opens discourse, the public trust in process is, if anything, more stressed and stretched to limits. That brings us to, apart from lawmakers, the general public's place in things. Bribes and favors in secret are possibilities, and what access do lawmakers and the public have to the deal negotiations, where treaties need Senate approval to bind.
One mischief readily appoarent, negotiate something, whthhold submission for Senate ratification, and then live by the bilateral deal, both sides, until one balks, saying it never formally went into effectd.
Then repeat the cycle.
Multilateral deals are likewise open to bribe or favoritism, and can you say Elon, or Big Oil? Or leaving submission to Senate ratification off the table, so US executive decision making can back out of anything.
Those seem to be ground rules of the Big Dog in negotiations, and dispute resolution in multilateral deals grabs onto idealogues yelling, "We will not surrender our sovereignty."
In effect, things are wide open, nations can play one off against the other, special deals for big players in national economies can be included, and secrecy favors special interests with clout. The whole world can be cartelized and oligopolies can be set to favor public sector economic powers over the poublic interest. Instead of nation states against each other, it can end up being one multinational bloc against others. Bilateral deals are easier to negotiate, because complications and compeating interests abound with the number of parties to a trade bloc agreements. Everyone has to end up happy, or at least satisfied, even if feeling rawly treated. Enough so that nation/players say, okay, even if grumbling.
That is the framework from which Crabgrass will look at stuff online and post additional stuff.
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Besides the Wiki other WTO links: Britannica, Investopedia, congress.gov, review item