Free Trade Area or Common Capital Market? Notes on Mexico-US Economic Integration and Current NAFTA Negotiations

1992 ◽  
Vol 34 (2) ◽  
pp. 53-92 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jaime Ros
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Free Trade ◽  
Economic Integration ◽  
Free Trade Area ◽  
Trade Agreement ◽  
The United States ◽  
Investment Liberalization ◽  
Trade Area ◽  
Mexican Government ◽  
Trade And Investment

This Article addresses some of the key issues involved in understanding current trade negotiations between Mexico and the United States, as well as their significance for the process of economic integration in North America. These issues derive from the new setting produced by (a) Mexico's trade and investment liberalization in the 1980s, (b) the incentives which underlie the drive towards integration, as well as (c) those factors which will condition the final content of the current negotiating process.A free trade agreement (FTA) with the United States could be seen as the logical conclusion of the process of trade and investment liberalization carried out by the Mexican government ever since the mid-1980s. At the same time, it also represents a shift in Mexico's initial trade strategy, from multilateralism to bilateralism, or from globalization to regionalization, as a consequence of the global trend, toward the end of the 20th century, to create large regional economic blocs.

The Political Economy of NAFTA/USMCA

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gustavo A. Flores-Macías ◽  
Mariano Sánchez-Talanquer
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Free Trade ◽  
Free Trade Area ◽  
Trade Agreement ◽  
The United States ◽  
Trade Area ◽  
The North ◽  
Positive Side ◽  
The One ◽  
United States Mexico

When the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) came into force on January 1st, 1994, it created the largest free trade area in the world, and the one with the largest gaps in development between member countries. It has since served as a framework for trilateral commercial exchange and investment between Canada, Mexico, and the United States. NAFTA’s consequences have been mixed. On the positive side, the total value of trade in the region reached $1.1 trillion in 2016, more than three times the amount in 1994, and total foreign direct investment among member countries also grew significantly. However, the distribution of benefits has been very uneven, with exposure to international competition reducing economic opportunity and increasing insecurity for certain sectors in all three countries. Twenty-four years later, the three countries renegotiated the terms of NAFTA and renamed it the United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement (USMCA). The negotiation responded in part to the need to modernize the agreement, but mostly to President Donald Trump’s concerns about NAFTA’s effect on the U.S. economy and the fairness of its terms. Although the revised agreement incorporated rules that modernize certain aspects of the institutional framework, some new provisions also make trade and investment relations in North America more uncertain.

scholarly journals The Development of the Free Trade Area of the Americas: A Guide For Legal Research

2005 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
pp. 11-64 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michelle S. Viegas
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Free Trade ◽  
Free Trade Agreement ◽  
Free Trade Area ◽  
Trade Agreement ◽  
Trade Agreements ◽  
The United States ◽  
Common Market ◽  
Trade Area ◽  
The World

At the 1994 Summit of the Americas, leaders of democratic nations in the Western Hemisphere committed to establishing a Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) by January 2005. The Declaration of Principles resulting from that Summit called for building on “existing sub-regional and bilateral arrangements in order to broaden and deepen hemispheric economic integration and to bring the agreements together.” Although ambitious, this endeavor was undertaken during a decade marked by an unprecedented proliferation of trade agreements. In 1991, Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay agreed to initiate the formation of a common market now known as the MERCOSUR. Then in 1994, Canada, Mexico and the United States signed the North American Free Trade Agreement which replaced the United States-Canada Free Trade Agreement. Later that year, nations around the world formalized the existing General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, creating the World Trade Organization. In 1997, the Andean Community of Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela formalized its plans to establish a common market. Members of the Caribbean Community and Common Market also agreed in several protocols to further their economic and social integration. During the 1990's, numerous other trade agreements were negotiated, and their development continues at the same rapid pace today.

scholarly journals ANALYSIS OF RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE EUROPEAN UNION AND THE UNITED STATES IN THE PERIOD THE PRESIDENCY OF DONALD TRUMP (2017-2020)

2020 ◽  
pp. 35-39
Author(s):  
Andrei Martynov ◽  
Sergey Asaturov
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
European Union ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Free Trade ◽  
United Arab Emirates ◽  
Migration Policy ◽  
Free Trade Area ◽  
The United States ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Trade Area

The European Union has met Donald Trump's presidency in a crisis, caused by Britain's exit, quarrels over migration policy and prospects for European integration. Trump has abandoned a project to create a transatlantic free trade area. He demanded a one-sided trade advantage for the United States. The rejection of the liberal project of multilateral foreign policy contributed to the deepening of contradictions between the EU and the US in the field of trade, environment, the regime of international disarmament treaties, the algorithm for resolving regional conflicts. The Trump era in US foreign policy was a time of abandoning liberal globalism. But it is impossible to realize this task in one cadence. The question is whether it is possible for Democrats to fully restore liberal globalism in equal cooperation with the European Union.Trump has abandoned the project of a transatlantic free trade area between the United States and the European Union. This shocked the European elites. Differences in approaches to world trade contributed to the coolness. The European Union is promoting a liberal approach. Trump insisted on the priority of the patronage of American interests. As a result, the tradition of relationships has suffered. Until 2017, the United States bought European goods and paid the most to the NATO budget. Trump demanded trade parity and more European funding for NATO. European elites perceived Trump's approach to migration issues as unacceptable. Trump's policy on international conflicts has become another reason for mutual misunderstanding. Trump recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and helped establish diplomatic relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates. This has become a challenge for the European Union's Middle East policy.

scholarly journals A Solution for Africa

2009 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Collins
Keyword(s):  
Free Trade ◽  
Regional Integration ◽  
Market Integration ◽  
Free Trade Area ◽  
Trade Agreement ◽  
The United States ◽  
Majority Voting ◽  
Regional Environment ◽  
Trade Area ◽  
The Eu

Regionalism—the efforts of a group of nations to enhance their economic, political, social, and cultural interaction—can assume various forms, including regional integration/cooperation, market integration, development integration, with the intent of accommodating the changing national, international, and regional environment. Despite the fact that to this day, attempts at integration (in particular, market integration based on the EU model) and regionalist impulses as they currently occur have been entirely unproductive throughout the African continent, regionalism continues to be regarded by African leaders as a reasonable strategy for increasing intra-regional trade and for reversing Africa’s rising marginalization in the world economy. They continue to be assured by the success of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the viability of the European Union’s (EU) model for integration, which begins with a free trade area or preferential trade area and ends with complete economic integration. The EU model features a specific mode of decision making (qualified majority voting), conflict resolution mechanism (role of the European Court of Justice), budgetary arrangements (revenue collection and distribution), and citizen involvement (direct elections to the European Parliament) and takes on increasingly state-like functions. While extremely successful in integrating its constituent member state in Europe, as a model it is limited, given the unique circumstances under which it was established and promoted. As noted by Emil Kirchner: Consideration of the EU as a model for other regional integration settings might be limited, given the unique circumstances in which it was established and promoted. Born out of conflict, the EU benefited from special circumstances in its development, e.g. the Cold War, the United States guarantee and nurturing role, and the industrialised nature of the European economies, which are not found elsewhere.

scholarly journals Brazil and the institutionalization of South America: from hemispheric estrangement to cooperative hegemony

2011 ◽  
Vol 54 (2) ◽  
pp. 189-211 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carlos Gustavo Poggio Teixeira
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
South America ◽  
Free Trade ◽  
Free Trade Area ◽  
The United States ◽  
South American ◽  
The South ◽  
Trade Area

This article argues that Brazil went from a posture of estrangement in relation to the hemispheric project represented by the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) to a strategy of cooperative hegemony aimed at institutionalizing the South American space and increasing the costs of the FTAA for the United States. Although Brazil was initially isolated, US lack of leadership combined with events at the subregional level ended up turning the tide in the direction of Brazilian interests. These factors help to understand the current institutional configuration of South America.

scholarly journals Integration Character of the CETA Agreement

2018 ◽  
Vol 4 (337) ◽  
pp. 111-125
Author(s):  
Magdalena Śliwińska
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Free Trade ◽  
Economic Integration ◽  
Free Trade Area ◽  
Trade Agreement ◽  
Trade Agreements ◽  
Economic Life ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Trade Area ◽  
New Generation

One of the manifestations of economic globalisation seen in recent years is the so‑called “new generation” type of trade agreements such as the TPP, CETA and TTIP. They aim at trade liberalisation, but their scope is broader, comprising other areas of socio‑economic life, more or less directly linked to trade, such as e.g.: the liberalisation of public services, the mutual recognition of professional qualifications, the deregulation and liberalisation of financial markets, the protection of intellectual property rights, and the cooperation in creating new rules or protecting mutual investments. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to analyse the scope and content of the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) signed in 2016 by the European Union and Canada from the point of view of the Balassa stages of economic integration and the EU’s experience in order to state whether the naming of such agreements as trade agreements, even with the “new generation” qualification, is really justified. The analysis presented in this paper leads to the conclusion that this agreement should rather be included in the category of agreements labelled as integration agreements. Most of the CETA provisions are at the same level of sophistication as was achieved by the EU countries at the stage of building the single market, that is, at the stage of the implementation of the common market in Balassa’s nomenclature, and some of them are at the stage of economic and monetary union. The scope of the CETA, i.e. the number of areas of social and economic life regulated by it as well as their advancement and complexity, goes far beyond what is commonly understood as a trade agreement and beyond its official purpose – the creation of a free trade area between the European Union and Canada. It leads to economic integration at a level far deeper than a free trade area in its classic and common sense.

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