Joining Together, Standing Apart: National Identities after NAFTA

NAFTA has initiated a procedure for addressing transborder economic problems in a more adequate and predictable fashion, potentially encouraging policy convergence between three disparate political cultures. Rather than addressing economic, social and environmental policy issues separately, trade policy now serves as a vehicle for negotiating policy convergence. Consequently trade officials are being forced to deal with an expanded array of domestic policy isues. This text presents a detailed examination of the initial NAFTA experience and evaluates its long-term implications beyond those of ending trade and tarriff barriers. In particular, it examines the cultural implications of this international arrangement. In addition, environmental protection and conservation issues are increasingly at the forefront of the international political agenda. NAFTA's environmental side agreement has created a way of addressing environmental concerns whilke protecting local standards, illustrating the attempt to achieve policy convergence by means of a trade apparatus. NAFTA now represents the continuing tension between integration and the maintenance of national autonomy.