Regional trade blocs are preferential trade agreements between subsets of countries that remove trade barriers within member countries and refer to regional trade integration. Major trade blocs include the EU, NAFTA, MERCOSUR, ASEAN, and SAARC. Trade blocs imply reducing barriers to trade and involve discriminated trade liberalization and deeper forms of integration like harmonizing competition policies. They are motivated by desires to import development regionally, insulate from the global economy, and pursue both economic and political objectives through exchanging concessions between a small number of countries. Trade blocs can take the form of free trade areas, customs unions, common markets, or economic unions and provide benefits like eliminating transaction costs while potential disadvantages include instability, over