My presentation will focus on India's reluctant retreat from WTO MFN disciplines as the big trading powers (EU enlargement 1973; NAFTA 1994; the aborted FTAA) all moved to preferential trade even as the Uruguay Round was being concluded and the WTO was created under the Marrakesh agreement. I will then draw an analogy between the rewriting of the UN Framework Convention for Climate Change (UNFCCC) in the Paris Agreement of 2015 and the reformulation of the GATT in the creation of the WTO, both developments which were seen as pushback by the advanced countries against the surprising success of the large emerging economies. From this I will move to the shift in FTA policies that occurred since PM Modi's third term began in May 2024, a major reversal since India exited RCEP negotiations in 2017. I will conclude with some observations on the additional challenges India has faced with the Trump Administration and now with the wars in Ukraine and the Gulf and what all this might imply for India becoming "CPTPP ready" as a framework that provides a rule-based system which includes the UK, Japan and Canada and which is likely to converge on disciplines with the EU. While the focus is market access the ultimate prize is attracting investment and the link between trade and investment will be an additional issue I will touch on. The presentation will be more narrative than analytic.
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