Hemispheric Integration in the Post-Seattle Era

Abstract

THE SEA-CHANGE TOWARD (MORE COMPLICATED) ECONOMIC ISSUESToday, public discourse rings with economic jargon that only twenty years ago was the exclusive purview of academic economists and policy wonks. Terms such as 'interdependence,' 'integration,' 'velocity' and, of course, 'globalization' were hardly part of the public debate over economic policy. While the precise meanings of some of these terms, particularly 'globalization,' is subject to debate,(f.1) there is little doubt that their entrance into the public lexicon is but one signal of a sea-change in how influential economic issues have become in both domestic and foreign policy debates. The cold-war language of deterrence, mutually assured destruction, and strategic defence has not so much disappeared as it has been transformed into such terms as national missile defence and rogue states. But it is the relatively new catchwords of global economics that have dominated international affairs since the break up of the Sovier Union.Two decades ago, few would have predicted the rapid changes in the global economic system. Fewer still noticed Ronald Regan's vague reference to a 'North American accord' when he announced his candidacy for president in November 1979. In an era of moderately nationalist economic policies in Canada and decades of import substitution in Mexico, a North American economic accord of any kind seemed incomprehensible. Yet, by the end of the 1980s, the political and economic climate in North America had so changed that what was once unthinkable was fast becoming reality. By October 1987, the United States and Canada were putting the finishing touches to an impressive comprehensive free trade agreement.Meanwhile, in Mexico, years of crippling debt and defensive economic crisis management had given way to unilateral liberalization, membership in the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) in 1986, and, in 1990, a bold proposal from President Carlos Salinas for a United States-Mexico free trade agreement. Much the same story can be told of economic and political conditions throughout the western hemisphere. For the first time, economic and political reform appeared to be laying the foundation for a larger 'hemispheric accord' that by the early 1990s had taken on an air of inevitability. The spread of democracy in Latin America, proliferation of integrative economic arrangements such as the Southern Cone Common Market (MERCOSUR), the conclusion of both the Uruguay round of GATT and the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), and, perhaps most importantly for hemispheric economic issues, a renewed interest in Latin America on the part of the United States embodied in President George Bush senior's Enterprise for the Americas Initiative in 1990 all appeared to converge in Miami in 1994 at the Summit of the Americas in an enthusiasm for hemispheric integration and co-operation.In retrospect, enthusiasm seemed to peak in Miami. The dramatic nexus of conditions leading up to Miami has suffered an equally rapid decline so that what seemed inevitable in 1994 has for several years seemed much less certain. While work on a grand hemispheric pact continues and the election of George W. Bush in the United States has renewed interest in the hemisphere, the emergence of trade and economic issues as primary public policy concerns has contributed to heightened public awareness, and critical scrutiny, of the impact of global economic issues. The strength of the economic and political logic behind further economic integration and liberalization was, in hindsight, just strong enough to overcome public anxiety during the NAFTA and GATT debates in the mid-1990s. The late 1990s were another matter. Where did the momentum go?Many scholars and policy pundits unambiguously lay the blame on the United States. Some argue that the inability of President Bill Clinton and his administration to marshal support for liberalization within its traditional constituency led to inconsistency and confusion on trade policy at a critical juncture. …