Three countries or one continent?
Mexico’s reforms should give the idea of a North American community more impetus
NEVER have Latin American leaders talked so much about regional integration as in the past decade. They have cooked up an alphabet soup of organisations, whose chefs hold non-stop summits even as trade among them grows only slowly. But three countries in the Americas have practised integration while eschewing much of the fanfare.
Under the North American Free-Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which came into effect in January 1994, the economies of Mexico and Canada have become ever more closely entwined with that of the United States. Trade between the three has more than tripled, to $1.1 trillion in 2013, and cross-border investment has risen fourfold. Many companies now operate on a North American basis.
This article appeared in the The Americas section of the print edition under the headline "Three countries or one continent?"
From the October 4th 2014 edition
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