ABSTRACT
In the United States (US), the corporate media have framed the debate over globalization largely as a struggle between cosmopolitan advocates and their provincial opponents. A decade of protests against the World Trade Organization (WTO) and International Monetary Fund have shown that resistance is not futile. The immediate effect, may be to channel the globalization agenda back into regional free trade agreements. The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) went into effect on January 1, 1994. While 2005 came and went without the Free Trade Area of the Americas, the US Congress did approve by the narrowest of margins the Central American Free Trade Agreement. Open trade within the European Union poses less of a threat for wages and labor standards than NAFTA or the WTO. Founded in 1967 at the height of the Vietnam War, the Association of South East Asian Nations sought to promote regional security for its original members Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand.
