A free trade area, established between Canada and the USA in 1989, Mexico joining in 1993. NAFTA aims to remove import tariffs and quotas on most raw materials and manufactured goods, and restrictions on trans-border financial services. The agreement also has proposals on health, pollution, and the use of renewable resources. The North American Free Trade Agreement is the most comprehensive free trade pact (short of a common market) ever negotiated between regional trading partners, and the first reciprocal free trade pact between a developing country and industrial countries (G. C. Hufbauer and J. Schott 1993).
Koring (2004, www.Vigile.net) writes that ‘the risk is that the trilateral relationship is being further eclipsed by the two bilateral relationships. Even though Canada–Mexico ties and trade have grown over the past 20 years, they remain inconsequential compared to Canada–U.S. relations and the relationship between the United States and Mexico, which is evolving even more rapidly’.