North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)

NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement, is a trilateral agreement between Canada, Mexico, and the United States in which the three nations pledge to reduce trade barriers against each other to improve international trade and comity. Celebrating its 10th anniversary on January 1, 2004, NAFTA is an example of regional economic integration combining three sovereign nations. Although Canada, Mexico, and the United States are arguably at different levels of economic development, they came together in an agreement to develop a multilateral North American trading bloc. The NAFTA Agreement had its genesis in an earlier bilateral free trade agreement between the United States and Canada, the U.S./Canada Free Trade Agreement (1989).