Caught in the Middle: Canada in the Changing Configuration of Global Regions

Abstract

In the context of the failure of the World Trade Organization (WTO)'s Doha Round, a proliferation of bilateral, state-to-state trade and investment negotiations is taking place in parallel and sometimes in conflict with the strengthening phenomenon of regionalization.Having adopted a strategy in the 1980s designed to anchor itself within an integrated North American regional economy, Canada finds itself facing the failure of its last two and a half decades' of foreign trade and investment strategy. Looking inside North America, the country is being disconnected from its own region. The United States' economic decline and rising protectionism threaten Canada's primary export market. The American shift to an anti-terrorist security paradigm further inhibits the growth of those economic flows on which Canada's prosperity has long depended. Looking outside North America, Canada is being pulled westwards, southwards, and eastwards. Demand from rising Asian markets for Canada's unprocessed resources is beckoning it westwards. It is being driven south by Canadian mining transnationals' need for politically protected opportunities. At the same time, it is being drawn eastwards to Europe and further east to India by the hope for comprehensive economic agreements. The paper addresses the significance – or lack of significance – of the trade agreements that have been negotiated and those that are being contemplated.