Because the U.S. typically negotiates FTAs in light of previous ones, the USMCA is likely to be the starting point for negotiations. A review of the legal implications of a free trade agreement is extremely important for a number of reasons. First, based on the pacta sunt servanda principle enshrined in Article 26 of the Vienna Convention of the Law of Treaties (VCLT), once ratified, an FTA is binding upon the parties and must be performed by them in good faith. Under Article 27 of the VCLT, a party may not invoke the provisions of its internal law as justification for its failure to perform a treaty. Second, FTAs are not benign policy instruments. FTAs have legal consequences and can expose states to considerable legal risks and legal consequences. Third, accentuating the legal risks associated with FTAs is the fact that most FTAs come fully equipped with one or more binding and built-in dispute resolution mechanisms. Fourth, given their increasingly expansive scope, high-standard, comprehensive FTAs reach too deeply into the domestic regulatory space of states and have the potential to chill regulatory action and undermine rights protected under domestic, regional, and international law. Fifth, FTAs can create a different type of legal risk for states, an internal one.