Waheed Khan

Distinctive Features of the North American Regionalism: Why Nafta is Least Likely to Follow the Path of the Eu? Waheed Khan

Under the conditions of change and uncertainty, countries around the world have sought regional arrangements to solve their mutual problems or to provide a common front vis-à-vis rest of the world. Despite tremendous success of the European integration and predictions during the 1990s that the post-Cold War world would culminate into a world of competing regional blocs, we are hardly close to this vision. This book highlights the unique characteristics of the North American region and addresses the question why NAFTA did not lead to a deeper and wider integration like that of Europe? Answer to this question was found in the NAFTA treaty itself. Even though Canada and Mexico were first and third largest trading partners of the United States in 1994, NAFTA negotiators took an extra care to maintain their national sovereignties. In addition to nationalism and differences in the size of economies, major reason for this attitude was a desire of the countries to maintain their independence towards rest of the world.