It’s getting hard to keep track of all the various trade negotiations going on right now.

As this blog’s readers may recall, in his State of the Union speech, President Obama announced that the United States would begin trade negotiations with the EU. And no doubt you know that the United States, Canada, and Mexico are part of NAFTA.

But less prominently, the United States, Canada, and Mexico are also part of trade talks among various nations in the Pacific region, called the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP). And now Japan has announced that it would like to join these talks.

In addition, Canada and the EU have been negotiating their own trade agreement for several years now.

And just the other day, Japan and the EU started trade talks.

Oh, and Mexico has suggested a broader NAFTA-EU trade deal.

Got all that? It’s OK if you don’t—I’m not sure I do either.

There are some good reasons to use international trade agreements to promote free trade. The world trading system has been very successful in bringing down tariffs and other protectionist barriers over the past few decades. But the recent proliferation of agreements, with sometimes conflicting rules (going beyond just protectionism), may be steering us away from real free trade. Real free trade would lower trade barriers for all countries, not just for some. Hopefully some day trade negotiations can get back to that principle.