North American Economic Integration: State or Supranational Preferences?

Abstract

When Stephen Harper, Enrique Pena Nieto, and Barack Obama—chief executives of the three “North” American countries1—met in Toluca, Mexico, in February 2014,2 the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) signed by the three countries was already 20 years old. Crafted at a time of intense regional trade bloc rivalry,3 NAFTA bondages were quickly and widely interpreted in similar fashion as the European Union (EU)—of policy-making authorities plausibly passing from the state to a supranational entity.4 In other words, existing mutually dependent, or interdependent, relations would pave the way for economic integration of sorts between states. Yet, as Duncan Wood of the Mexican Institute in Washington, DC argued, shortly after the Toluca Summit: (a) “the bilateral approach has more often than not trumped trilateralism” and (b) “a dual-bilateral approach may be complementary,” ultimately, to the “trilateral vision for the region.”5 Had the ambitious initial integrative efforts regressed into interdependence across North America during those 20 years, or was a strategic shift underway to adjust to globalizing economic behavior elevating unilateral action?