Abstract
What is the future of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)? No official step was taken when its originally stipulated 15-years tenure expired on December 31, 2008. Nor was any underway at the end of 2009, leading one to expect any North American regionalism evaluation, whenever the time comes, to be hard-headed. It is not that NAFTA was a complete failure: trade and investment volumes and values expanded beyond wild expectations;1 and the degree of already expanding human mobility across national boundaries reached unprecedented levels.2 In short, for many of those 15 years, Canada and Mexico became the top two trading partners of the country with the world’s largest economy—the United States.3 How NAFTA expanded Canada-Mexico economic transactions,4 literally from scratch, but more emphatically, how it virtually dissolved two generations of an import substitution culture inside Mexico,5 left irreversible prints—as well as emotional yet enlightening histories. In the absence of policy responses, extant literatures pitting regionalism against nationalism/statism/localism, on the one hand, and globalism/transnationalism, on the other, not only specify pitfalls for corrective purposes but also help project possible future pathways.6
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Notes
Gary Clyde Hufbauer and Jeffrey J. Schott, NAFTA Revisited: Achievement and Challenges (Washington, DC: Institute for International Economics, 2005), Chapter One.
Norris C. Clement, Gustavo del Castillo Vera, James Gerber, William A. Kerr, Alan J. MacFadyen, Stanford Shedd, Eduardo Zepeda, and Diana Alarcón, North American Economic Integration: Theory and Practice (Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar, 1999).
Canada has been the top U.S. trading partner in recent history. Mexico displaced Japan for the second spot right after NAFTA was initiated, while in 2003 China pushed Mexico aside. How these could happen is explored in Stephen Blank and Jerry Haar, Making NAFTA Work: U.S. Firms and the New North American Business Environment (Miami: North-South Center Press, University of Miami, 1998).
Louis E.V. Nevaer, NAFTA’s Second Decade: Assessing Opportunities in the Mexican and Canadian Markets (Mason, OH: South-Western Educational Publishing, a division of Thomson Learning, 2004), esp. Chapter Three.
U.S. Congress, Office of Technological Assessment, U.S.-Mexico Trade: Pulling Together or Pulling Apart? ITE #545 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1992).
Dani Rodrik, “Globalisation and labour, or: if globalization is a bowl of cherries, why are there so many glum faces around the table?” Market Integration, Regionalism and the Global Economy, ed., Richard Baldwin, Daniel Cohen, Andre Sapin, and Anthony Venables (New York: Cambridge University Press, for Center for Economic Policy Research, 1999), 117–50
Xiaohong He, “From trade among nations to trade within firms across national borders,” Globalization and Regionalization: Strategies, Policies, and Economic Environments, ed., Jean-Louis Mucchielli, Peter J. Buckley, and Victor V. Cordell (New York: International Business Press, an imprint of Haworth Press, 1998), 15–46
Kenichi Ohmae, The Next Global Stage: Challenges and Opportunities in Our Borderless World (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Wharton School, 2005). See also the collection of articles in
Richard S. Belous and Jonathan Lemco, eds., NAFTA as a Model of Development: The Benefits and Costs of Merging High and Low Wage Areas (Washington, DC: Institute of the Americas, National Planning Association, and Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, 1993);
Peter Morici, Trade Talks With Mexico: A Time for Realism (Washington, DC: National Planning Association, 1991); and
Isidro Morales, Post-NAFTA North America: Reshaping the Economic and Political Governance of a Changing Region (Houndsmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008).
See, for example, Jorge Bustamante, “NAFTA and labour migration to the United States,” Mexico and the North American Free Trade Agreement: Who Will Benefit? (New York: St. Martin’s Press, for Institute of Latin American Studies, University of London, 1994), 79–94; and
Barbara Driscoll, “Migration under NAFTA: an inescapable quandary,” NAFTA, The First Year: A View From Mexico, ed., David R. Dávila Villers (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1996), Chapter Nine.
Gary Clyde Hufbauer, Daniel C. Esty, Diana Orejas, Luis Rubio, and Jeffrey J. Schott, NAFTA and the Environment: Seven Years Later (Washington, DC: Institute for International Economics, 2000); Alfredo Cesar Dachary, “Environmental problems in NAFTA: who gets the benefits?” NAFTA: The First Year, Chapter Eleven;
Stephen I. Schlossberg, “The impact of NAFTA on labor,” The North American Free Trade Agreement: Labor, Industry, and Government Perspectives, ed., Mario F. Bognanno and Kathryn J. Ready (Westport, CT: Quorum Books, 1993), Chapter Twenty-One; and
Jan Gilbreath and John Benjamin Tonra, “The environment: unwelcome guest at the free trade party,” The NAFTA Debate: Grappling with Unconventional Trade Issues, ed., M. Delal Baer and Sidney Weintraub (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1994), Chapter Three.
John R. MacArthur, The Selling of “Free Trade”: NAFTA, Washington, and the Subversion of American Democracy (New York: Hill and Wang, a division of Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2000).
Joseph A. Greenwald, “Dispute settlement in a North American free trade agreement,” ANNALS of the American Political and Social Science no. 526 (March 1993): 172–82. Henceforth simply ANNALS.
Melissa A. Essary, “Can Mexico be incorporated into the Free Trade Agreement’s dispute resolution mechanism?” Implications of a North American Free Trade Region: Multidisciplinary Perspectives, ed., Joseph A. McKinney and M. Rebecca Sharpless (Ottawa: Carleton University Press, 1992), 93–133; Antonio Ortiz Mena, L. N., “Dispute settlement under NAFTA,” NAFTA in the New Millennium, Chapter Eighteen; and Linda C. Reif, “NAFTA, WTO, and FTAA: choice of forum in dispute resolution,” ibid., Chapter Nineteen.
Martha A. Ojeda and Rosemary Hennessy, NAFTA From Below: Maquiladora Workers, Farmers, and Indigenous Communities Speak Out on the Impact of Free Trade in Mexico (San Antonio, TX: Coalition for Justice in the Maquiladoras, 2006); and
Philip L. Martin, “Good intentions gone awry: IRCA and U.S. agriculture,” ANNALS no. 534 (July 1994): 44–57.
For the phenomenon on a broader Latin context, see Joseph Nathan Cohen and Miguel Angel Centeno, “Neoliberalism and patterns of economic performances, 1980–2000,” ANNALS no. 606 (July 2006): 32–67.
See Ann E. Kingsolver, NAFTA Stories: Fears and Hopes in Mexico and the United States (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2001).
Amelia Malagamba Ansótegui, “The cultural impact: a Mexican commentary,” Implications of a North American Free Trade Region, 209–11; and Charlels J. McMillan, “Riding on emotion: cultural industries and a NAFTA accord,” ibid., 195–212; and Gerardo Otero, “Global economy, local politics: indigenous struggles, civil society and democracy,” Canadian Journal of Political Science 37, no. 2 (June 2004): 325–46.
For example, in how First Nations “reject the financial terms” of trade treaties made by the federal government. See Gurston Dacks, “Implementing First Nations self-government in Yukon: lessons for Canada,” Canadian Journal of Political Science 37, no. 3 (December 2004): 671–94, quote from 673; and on why indigenous social movements continue in Canada, though without institutional anchors, see
Rima Wilkes, “The protest actions of indigenous peoples: a Canadian-U.S. comparison of social movement emergence,” American Behavioral Scientist 50, no. 4 (December 2006): 510–25. For a broader discussion of indigenous interaction with globalizing forces, like regionalism, see
Erik Larson, Zachary Johnson, and Monique Murphy, “Emerging indigenous governance: Ainu rights at the intersection of global norms and domestic institutions,” Alternatives 33, no. 1 (January–March 2008): 53–82.
Keith G. Banting, “Social policy in a North American free-trade area,” A New North America: Cooperation and Enhanced Interdependence, ed., Charles F. Doran and Alvin Paul Drischler (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1996), 91–111; and Richard Estrada, “The social impact of free trade: the immigration component,” Implications of a North American Free Trade Region, 157–70.
Gerald P. O’Driscoll, Jr., “Interstate obstacles to commerce,” Free Trade Within North America: Expanding Trade for Prosperity, Proceedings of the 1991 Conference on the Southwest Economy Sponsored by the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, ed., Driscoll, Proceedings of the 1991 Conference on the Southwest Economy Sponsored by the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas (Boston, MA: Kluwer Academic, 1993), 151–60;
Edward J. Chambers, “Canadian provinces under free trade: Alberta and British Columbia,” NAFTA in the New Millennium, ed., Chambers and Peter H. Smith (La Jolla, CA: Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies, University of California; and Edmonton, AB: University of Alberta, 2002), Chapter Four; Carlos Alba Vega, “Regional policy under NAFTA: the case of Jalisco,” ibid., Chapter Five; James B. Gerber, “Different states, similar responses: California, Texas, and NAFTA,” ibid., Chapter Six;
Ailsa Henderson, “Regional political cultures in Canada,” Canadian Journal of Political Science 37, no. 3 (September 2004): 595–616; and
David Merchant and Paul Rich, “Comparing Mexican and Canadian federalism,” American Behavioral Scientist 47, no. 10 (June 2004): 1329–34.
Robert T. Moran and Jeffrey Abbott, NAFTA: Managing the Cultural Differences: How to Benefit from the Economic and Cultural Integration of North America (Houston, TX: Gulf, 1994); and
Patricia M. Goff, Limits to Liberalization: Local Culture in a Global Marketplace (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2007).
From a long list, see Maryse Robert, Negotiating NAFTA: Explaining the Outcome in Culture, Textiles, Autos, and Pharmaceuticals (Toronto, ON: University of Toronto Press, 2000).
For a pre-9/11 view, see William Perry, “Mexico and NAFTA: the politico-security dimension in historical perspective,” Assessments of the Free Trade Agreement (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1993), Chapter Three.
See collection of article on subject in Philip L. Martin, ed., Trade and Migration: NAFTA and Agriculture (Washington, DC: Institute of International Economics, 1993).
The theme was apparently evident, but swallowed, during the NAFTA negotiations. See Maxwell A. Cameron and Brian W. Tomlin, The Making of NAFTA: How the Deal Was Done (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2000).
Hegemonic stability theory addresses this explicitly through one of its tenets—the collective goods provision (the leader absorbs the costs virtually alone, leaving the benefits to be shared by all—a gesture less out of altruism than the egotistic calculation behind offering briberies and establishing steadfast followers). See Charles P. Kindleberger, The World in Depression, 1929–1939 (Berkeley, CA: University of California, 1973), first and last chapters deal with the theoretical issues; and
Robert Gilpin, U.S. Power and the Multinational Corporation: The Political Economy of Foreign Direct Investment (New York: Basic Books, 1975), Chapters One–Two.
At least Sidney Weintraub has considered such a framework for NAFTA. See NAFTA: What Comes Next? Washington Papers, #166 (Westport, CT: Praeger, for the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Washington, DC, 1994). Also see Michael Gestrin and Leonard Waverman, “Extension of NAFTA to Latin America,” Foreign Investment and NAFTA, ed., Alan Rugman (Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 1994), Chapter Twelve; David W. Edgington and W. Mark Fruin, “NAFTA and Japanese investment,” ibid., Chapter Eleven; and Peter H. Smith, “From NAFTA to FTAA: paths toward hemispheric integration,” NAFTA in the New Millennium, Chapter Twenty.
See Ernst B. Haas’s magisterial work, The Uniting of Europe: Political, Social and Economic Forces, 1950–1957 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1958), who proposed what came to be called neofunctionalism;
Karl W. Deutsch, Sidney A. Burrell, and Robert A. Kann, Political Community and the North Atlantic Area: International Organization in the Light of Historical Experience (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1969, originally 1957), who proposed what came to be called security community.
See Ronald Findlay and Kevin H. O’Rourke, “Commodity market integration, 1500–2000,” Globalization in Historical Perspective, ed., Michael D. Bordo, Alan M. Taylor, and Jeffrey G. Williamson (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2003 for the National Bureau of Economic Research) 13–62.
On distinctions between statehood and interdependence, see Thomas L. Ilgen, Autonomy and Interdependence: U.S.-Western European Monetary and Trade Relations, 1958–1984 (Totowa, NJ: Rowman & Allanhead, 1985), Chapter One.
Vivid in Haas, The Obsolescence of Regional Integration Theory (Berkeley, CA: University of California, Institute of International Studies, 1975).
See the entire volume, Robert O. Keohane and Joseph S. Nye, eds., Transnational Relations and World Politics (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1972).
More by Keohane and Nye, Power and Interdependence: World Politics in Transition (Boston, MA: Little, Brown, 1977). See also
Henry Nau, “From integration to interdependence: gains, losses, and continuing gaps,” International Organization 33, no. 1 (Winter 1979): 119–47.
Andrew Moravcsik, “Negotiating the Single European Act: national inter- and conventional statecraft in the European Community,” International Organization 45, no. 1 (Winter 1991): 19–56.
James N. Rosenau, Along the Domestic-Foreign Frontier: Exploring Governance in a Turbulent World (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997), Chapters Three–Four.
Charles Magill, “Chile: the ‘fourth amigo’: the North American Free Trade Agreement,” Readers Digest, Canadian edition (2006);
Carmen Zechner, Expanding NAFTA: Economic Effects on Chile of Free Trade with the United States (Münster, Germany: LIT; Piscataway, NJ: Transaction Distributors, 2002); and
George von Furstenberg, Banking and Financial Structure in the NAFTA Countries and Chile (Boston, MA: Kluwer Academic, 1997).
See Sebastián Claro, “Why does China protect its labour-intensive industries more,” Economics of Transition 14, no 2 (2006): 207–44.
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Hussain, I. (2010). Introduction: Beneath, Beyond, or Within North America’s Regional Box: Paradigm Indigestion?. In: Hussain, I. (eds) The Impacts of NAFTA on North America. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230110007_1
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