international thrusts of North American Free Trade Agreement and Popular Culture Association have same goals, that is, one encouraging and other understanding uninhibited flow of two kinds of human activity-commerce and cultures-across political and cultural boundaries in North America in a mutually beneficial way. Popular Culture scholars may or may not be interested in economics but they are concerned with comprehending engines that affect and are affected by commerce. most felicitous model, perhaps, is Olympic Games, where nationalism and personal ambition are rife but all participants play more or less according to rules, except when abrupt interruptions-like terrorists' strikes-cause aberrations. NAFTA, along with GATT, is one of latest efforts to reduce or eliminate barriers preventing free flow of trade between countries in Americas, especially between United States and Mexico. There is nothing new in humankind's desire to trade and acquire materials from other countries and peoples. According to Alison Brooks, of George Washington University, history of such trade is lost in earliest traces of human societies. Humans were using long-distance trading networks for exchange of quality stone and other goods in Africa at least 100,000 years ago, she believes (U.S. News, May 20, 1996). In our more immediate past since 13th century when Marco Polo traveled spice trail to China in order to establish better trading and cultural relations, it has been assumed trade-intercourse is one activity through which people get to know one another, and better they understand less likely they are to go to war. Thomas Jefferson feared that trade makes merchants people without a country: Merchants have no country, he said. The mere spot they stand on does not constitute any stronger attachment than that from which they draw their gains. But more internationalminded Tom Paine wrote that people who commerce together do not war. We of course know danger of relying too heavily on trade as great pacifier since it has been demonstrated that Adam Smith's reliance on enlightened self-interest (Wealth of Nations, 1776) is too simplistic because personal greed and ambition, nationalism, tribalism, madness, and various other vagaries can be stronger drives. But it may be time to give commercial intercourse between peoples another chance. Maybe enlightened self-interest can work if we can ever get it enlightened. At moment commercially and culturally United States is reaching out in every direction. Media mergers, for example, according to Joseph Turow (Communication Research, 1992) drive the globalization of mass media activities (687), energized by age-old greed for more profits. Newsweek (Aug. 14, 1995) commented on one aspect of America's outreach: Entertainment is not just one of America's largest exports, it's also our culture gone global (2). During summer of 1996, American TV through CNN and NBC penetrated more and more deeply and widely in Mexico, and American professional football and baseball filled Mexican stadiums while playing five pre-season games in various Mexican cities; in so-called Texas Stadium in Mexico City, for example, game drew 102,000 screaming fans during August. We have also reaffirmed that trade or promise of trade can cool blood of gods of war, as we saw during summer of 1996 when U.S. and China negotiated over pirating of American intellectual products and avoided military conflict. So role of NAFTA becomes clearer. But what of PCA? Before proceeding let me clear up definition of popular culture and popular culture studies. Popular culture is way of life in which and by which most people in any society live. In a democracy like United States it is voice of peopletheir likes and dislikes-the lifeblood of their daily existence, their way of life. …