ABSTRACT
The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) between Canada, the United States and Mexico was signed in 1992 and came into force on 1 January 1994, early in what is now referred to as the new wave or era of ‘new regionalisms’ (Shaw, Grant and Cornelissen 2011). To be sure, NAFTA shared some aspects of older forms of regionalism, particularly with its character as a preferential trade and investment agreement. Moreover, similar to the European Union (EU), NAFTA was principally a state-led project, with its design, vision and construction largely spearheaded by state actors. And even if Canada and Mexico were the demandeurs of the project (in the Canada–US Free Trade Agreement [CUFTA] and NAFTA respectively), the regional hegemon, the United States, imposed much of the content and ideology of the agreement and was able to veto important proposals coming from the weaker powers, such as Mexico’s quest for liberalization of migration restrictions in the United States. Similarly, the United States during the Clinton administration was able to insist on the inclusion of labour and environmental side accords in response to its own domestic political pressures and doubters in the US Congress, and against the wishes of the other two state players.
