The Fate of North American Integration: Security, Trade, and Regional Governance

Abstract

International cooperation through regional organizations or arrangements has become increasingly common in order for states to adequately deal with the globalizing effects of economic openness and liberalization. Regional integration agreements have developed all around the world and they continue to deepen as goods, services, and people fluidly move across political and territorial boundaries. Although regionalization continues to widen and deepen in other places of the world, North American integration remains stagnant since the peak of NAFTA in 2001. With heightened transnational security and global economic crisis, the three amigos have opted for a dual-bilateral approach rather than a trilateral one, which not only fails to deepen regional integration, but also erodes and dismantles the trilateral accomplishments of NAFTA. This paper will argue that North American integration has not only stagnated, but has ultimately declined due to institutional weakness and the heightened U.S. security agenda following 9/11. Through the examination of the Border Action Plan and the Merida Initiative, as well as a comparative analysis of Europe’s regional model, this paper will show that North American integration has not deepened, but rather has receded in the form of North American dependency, and without adequate political commitment, North America will remain in a dual-bilateral relationship.