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On July 1, 2020, after much expectation and delay, the new United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA)—a greatly revised version of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) of 1994—came into effect. This timely book by the author of the preeminent guide to NAFTA and an active participant and private sector advocate in the USMCA negotiation and legislative process provides a chapter-by-chapter analysis of the new agreement, clearly describing what has changed from the earlier agreement and what is new. After a concise but expertly calibrated summary of NAFTA, the author proceeds systematically through a practical analysis of each USMCA provision, emphasizing such crucial new elements as the following: new rules on intellectual property rights; stricter rules of origin within the automotive industry; major reforms in Mexican labor laws and their enforceability; opening of Canada's agricultural and dairy sector to more U.S. competition; entirely new chapter on digital trade; new dispute mechanisms; requirement of an increased minimum wage in auto plants; and a new chapter on environmental standards. Changes in such important aspects of trade as textiles and apparel, ownership of hydrocarbons, cross-border trade in services, and anticorruption measures are also fully described. The USMCA is a response to a United States initiative to renegotiate NAFTA. As a key regional trade agreement with vast global ramifications, familiarity with its content and rules is essential for all business, legal, policymaking, and academic parties concerned with international trade. This useful practical guide will be a welcome addition to private and corporate libraries, including corporate counsel, customs brokers, freight forwarders, logistics and import-export managers, government officials, and academics who need a thorough understanding of the new agreement.

México ha experimentado profundas transformaciones a raíz de las reformas económicas emprendidas en la década de los ochenta. La apertura comercial, denotada en especial con el tlcan, se presentó como un medio poderoso para expandir el comercio y la inversión, incrementar la movilidad del trabajo entre países, dinamizar el crecimiento económico y potenciar la industrialización, reducir las desigualdades y, en general, alcanzar un mayor bienestar. En este libro se examina la organización geográfica agregada y sectorial de las industrias manufactureras en México y se discute de manera crítica el impacto de la implantación del modelo de economía abierta sobre la localización y concentración geográfica de este importante sector económico

The economic integration between the European Union and Mexico is of strategic significance to both parts. The EU is Mexico's second most important trading partner and an integral piece in the diversification of its economic dependence from the United States. Besides, as Mexico is part of the North American Free Trade Agreement NAFTA and due to its geographical proximity to the United States, it has become of major geopolitical interest to the European Union. This multidisciplinary book analyzes the integration between Mexico and the European Union by economic, legal, and business management aspects, trying to contribute to a profound understanding of their relations.

There are few issues as politically explosive as the liberalization of trade, as recent controversies in the United States, Canada, and Mexico have shown. While loosening trade restrictions may make sense for a nation's economy as a whole, it typically alienates powerful vested interests. Those interests can exact severe political costs for the government that enacts change. So why accept the risk?Michael Lusztig contructs a model to determine why and under what conditions governments will take the free trade gamble. Lusztig uses his model to explain shifts to free trade in four cases: Britain's repeal of the Corn Laws; the United States'enactment of the Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act (1934); Canada's decision to initiate continental free trade with the United States in 1985; and Mexico's decision to pursue the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1990.

In the post-NAFTA era, Canada and Mexico face dramatic and irreversible changes from the Bush revolution in foreign public policy, the rising economic power of China and India, new concerns about border security and human rights, and the trends of economic integration. The essays in Big Picture Realities: Canada and Mexico at the Crossroads address the sea change in the political economic order of North America and chronicle the attempts of Canada and Mexico, two very different societies, to come to terms with the accumulated and often contradictory effects of micro and macro changes. Contributors are Canadian and Mexican scholars and leading authorities in security, immigration, human rights, foreign policy, Canada-Mexico relations, and market integration. This book is particularly valuable for public policy experts and scholars and students in international relations.

Free trade has been a highly contentious issue since the Conservative government of Brian Mulroney negotiated the first deal with the United States in the 1980s. Tracing the roots of Canada's contemporary involvement in North American free trade back to the Royal Commission on the Economic Union and Development Prospects for Canada in 1985 – also known as the Macdonald Commission – Gregory J. Inwood offers a critical examination of the commission and how its findings affected Canada's political and economic landscape, including its present-day reverberations.Using original research – including content analysis, interviews, archival information, and surveys of relevant literature – Inwood argues that the Macdonald Commission created an atmosphere and political discourse that made the continentalization of Canada possible by way of free trade agreements with the U.S. and Mexico. Through the use of a suspect research program, and with the aid of a select oligarchy within the Commission and the government bureaucracy, opposition to continentalism from both the majority of the Canadian population and even several commissioners was ignored. Accessible to readers interested in Canadian politics, policy, or economy, Continentalizing Canada offers a thorough examination into the Macdonald Commission and the resulting discourse in the Canadian political economy.