ABSTRACT
The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) is not a model for other regional agreements and certainly not for the World Trade Organization (WTO). NAFTA is unique in a number of ways. NAFTA was part of a US regional domino policy, a game launched in the 1980s with the Canada-US. Free Trade Agreement (FTA). The ultimate objective of the domino policy was to broaden and deepen the global system. Southern countries have several reservations about including environment and labour standards in trade agreements. During the 1970s and the new international economic order and the creation of UNCTAD, there was much enthusiasm for a development model based on import substitution. One was the Mexico financial crisis in 1982, the 'decade of despair' in Latin America, and the role of the IMF and the World Bank in the transformation of the development model.
