The New North America

This CFR-sponsored Independent Task Force report, North America: Time for a New Focus, asserts that elevating and prioritizing the U.S.-Canada-Mexico relationship offers the best opportunity for strengthening the United States and its place in the world.

This edited collection brings together a group of leading scholars to examine what North America might look like after NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement. Although the economic numbers for the three nations involved—Canada, Mexico, and the United States—are impressive, they do not tell the whole story. The real underlying question, according to these experts, is where is the North American region going? How strongly do Mexico, Canada, and the U.S. identify with the region? What strategies exist to propel North America into the 21st century? The authors divide their analysis into 2 parts: the first considers the perspective of each of the 3 countries towards the region and towards the problems they face in adapting to structural change; in the second, the analysis moves from present circumstances and expectations to strategy and options for strengthening the regional alliance.

North America was once called the New World. The people, their ideas, and the resources of the continent shaped the histories of the Old World--East and West. Today, North America is home to almost five hundred million people living in three vibrant democracies. If the three North American countries deepen their integration and cooperation, they have the potential to again shape world affairs for generations to come. For reasons of history and political culture, the United States, Canada, and Mexico are each highly protective of national sovereignty and independence. Yet twenty years ago, the three countries instituted a novel project to deepen integration while respecting sovereignty. Moreover, their special partnership bridged the North-South divide between developed and developing economies. The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) has been the cornerstone of this new structure. The new post-Cold War North America was conceived as an integrated economy within a global system, not as a protected bloc or experiment in shared sovereignty, as was the case with the European Union.

As the prime force behind trade throughout the Western Hemisphere, the United States is emerging with two trade projects--the newly-signed North American Free Trade Agreement and the projected New American Community. This volume provides a clear, concise guide to all aspects of the 5-volume NAFTA accord, its side agreements, and the unfolding New American Community. It covers specific issues, rationalizations, ideologies, controversies, and recommended actions. With special emphasis on the North American Free Trade Agreement, the volume will provide a major resource for both academics and decision makers in industry and government. Written by a leading authority on U.S. Latin American trade, the volume includes entries, arranged alphabetically, on NAFTA and other trade-related topics. The NAFTA entries are based on the five-volume treaty or official government and nongovernmental publications. Since the New American Community is still emerging, the non-NAFTA entries are interpolations from past trade accords and existing nationwide agreements or ideas based on global concepts and directives, especially the European Union.

Understanding NAFTA was first published in 1993 as Continental Shift: Free Trade & the New North America. This edition includes a new introduction that brings the NAFTA story up through 1995.

In its first seven years, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) tripled trade and quintupled foreign investment among the U.S., Mexico, and Canada, increasing its share of the world economy. In 2001, however, North America peaked. Since then, trade has slowed among the three, manufacturing has shrunk, and illegal migration and drug-related violence have soared. At the same time, Europe caught up, and China leaped ahead. In The North American Idea, eminent scholar and policymaker Robert A. Pastor explains that NAFTA's mandate was too limited to address the new North American agenda. Instead of offering bold initiatives like a customs union to expand trade, leaders of the three nations thought small. Interest groups stalemated the small ideas while inhibiting the bolder proposals, and the governments accomplished almost nothing. To overcome this resistance and reinvigorate the continent, the leaders need to start with an idea based on a principle of interdependence. Pastor shows how this idea--once woven into the national consciousness of the three countries--could mobilize public support for continental solutions to problems like infrastructure and immigration that have confounded each nation working on its own. Providing essential historical context and challenging readers to view the continent in a new way, The North American Idea combines an expansive vision with a detailed blueprint for a more integrated, dynamic, and equitable North America.

These proceedings include papers on Japan's World Role in the 1990s, the economic dimensions of Japan and North America, and Japan and North America as Partners in the Pacific Community. It also provides the concluding remarks.

Published by Briefing Books, The Washington Post Co., 1150 15th St., NW, 9th Fl., Washington, DC 20071. Thorough discussion of why the North American Free Trade Agreement is needed and should be ratified, done partially in a question-answer format and partially through narrative, tackling myths and misconceptions and giving both historical background and economic analysis. No references. Attractively designed, to better get the points across. 10.5x10.5" Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

In this volume, George Grayson illuminates the campaign for and against the agreement, leading to the crucial, fingernail-biting vote in the House of Representatives in November 1993.