The Australia – United States Free Trade Agreement (AUSFTA) is a preferential trade agreement between Australia and the United States modelled on the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). The AUSFTA was signed on 18 May 2004 and came into effect on 1 January 2005. History of the FTA The U.S. first proposed a free trade agreement with Australia as far back as 1945. In more recent times, the prospect of an Australia-U.S. FTA was raised in the 1980s by the Hawke government. In 1991 U.S. president George H. W. Bush offered to begin FTA negotiation with Australia and New Zealand, but was turned down by Australian Labor Party Prime Minister Paul Keating. It was not until early 2001, after the election of George W. Bush in the U.S. and with John Howard in power in Australia, that an Australia-U.S. FTA finally began to take shape. In April 2001, President Bush signalled his interest in pursuing an FTA with Australia provided "everything is on the table". Following this, in 2004, the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade commissioned a private consultancy – the Centre for International Economics (CIE) – to model the economic impacts of such an agreement. Negotiations for the FTA began in March 2003 and after six rounds of negotiations held in Canberra, Hawaii and Washington, D.C., the text was finally agreed to in February 2004, and signed off on by Australian Trade Minister Mark Vaile and U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick in Washington in May 2004. The FTA was ratified by the United States Congress with the passage of the United States-Australia Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act. It was passed by the House of Representatives on 14 July 2004 by a vote of 314–109 and by the Senate on 15 July 2004 by a vote of 80–16, and signed into law by President George W. Bush on 3 August 2004. In Australia, the agreement's implementing legislation, the US Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act 2004, was passed, with amendments, by the Senate on 13 August 2004. After some delay, the U.S. Administration accepted the amended Australian legislation as being consistent with implementation of the agreement. The Agreement came into force in both countries on 1 January 2005. Provisions of the FTA The text of the Free Trade Agreement is divided into twenty-three sections, listed and summarized as follows: Establishment of the free trade area and definitions This