Trade negotiations: next frontier for artificial intelligence

With international trade agreements becoming increasingly complex, UNCTAD is working with the Brazilian arm of the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC Brazil) to use artificial intelligence (AI) to help trade negotiators, especially those representing less powerful nations. "Artificial intelligence could help reduce the complexity of information and level the playing field between big and small players in trade negotiations," said Bonapas Onguglo, in charge of UNCTAD's trade analysis branch. A comparison of the 1985 US-Israel trade deal with the one that the United States and Singapore signed in 2004 shows how much such agreements have evolved. AI assists in trade negotiations The 1985 deal has less than 8,000 words and contains just 22 articles, mostly dedicated to tariffs, agricultural restrictions, import licensing and rules of origin – what Harvard economist Dani Rodrik calls conventional trade topics . While these issues are also covered in the US-Singapore deal, most of its 20 chapters and 70,000 or so words deal with other topics such as anti-competitive business conduct, e-commerce, intellectual property, investment rules, labour rights and the environment.