It has always surprised me that the 'free world', NATO countries, developed countries (including Japan, Taiwan, Australia), however one wants to call them, do not have at least free trade, if not free movement of people and capital, between them.

A travesty, IMO. And a great loss making us all poorer. Not a patchwork of point-to-point free trade agreements, but several hub agreements that countries join, and, in time, the hubs agree to free trade between them too.

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Steve16384 16 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I guess that's what the EU is trying to be.

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graemep 16 hours ago | parent [-]

The EU is specifically European - its in the name. Many of the arguments for the Eu that came up during Brexit were based on the importance of geographical proximity and shared culture.

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ceejayoz 16 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> The EU is specifically European - its in the name.

I don't disagree, but by this standard North Korea is a democratic republic, and Turkey's membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization is a bit odd.

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rsynnott 15 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

The EU has also been pushing for free trade agreements, tho (the Canada one, mercosur, the abortive US one).

	▲	graemep 13 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Yes,but it also does not want more than free trade with anyone outside Europe.

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pjc50 16 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The politics of this is grindingly difficult; people think of "them and us", not "we're all together in three free world". Achieving free trade means either dismantling all the little market carve-outs that local politics relies on, or enshrining them in the collective (EU farming policy).

Imagine trying to integrate the politics of Japanese rice farming into the CAP.

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nemomarx 16 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

The schengen zone is exactly this hub agreement isn't it?

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gus_massa 16 hours ago | parent | next [-]

IIRC schengen zone is about people, not about goods. There are like 10 almost overlaping zones. This is a map recently posted by amenghra:

https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/1tda6wl/european_in...

	▲	rsynnott 15 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Even this one understates it; it’s missing the special customs zone with Turkey.

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Aldipower 16 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Is Schen-zen a city in China?

Edit: The OP wrote 'schenzen' instead of 'schengen' before. That was the joke. Invisible now.