Regional Integration Of Southeast Asian Nations

The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which became effective on January 1, 1994, is a comprehensive, rules-based agreement designed to promote “free-trade” among the United States, Mexico and Canada (NAFTA Forum,1998). Although the agreement was made between three countries, it was largely the inclusion of Mexico around which most of the oppositional debate was centered (Mayer, 1998). Canada is a modern, developed nation very similar in culture and economy to the United States. Mexico, however, is considered a developing nation with an economy much weaker than the United States. Still, a prior trade agreement did exist between the United States and Mexico. Therefore, in order to properly evaluate

For example, the economic and trade development between the United States and ASEAN will first boost the economic development of ASEAN. With the continuous strengthening of economic and trade cooperation between China and ASEAN, China's economy will also develop continuously. Chinese enterprises are now actively participating in the process of economic globalization through outward FDI. In these countries that have signed free trade agreements with the United States, Chinese enterprises can make good use of favorable local resources and other factors of production to make investments and continuously upgrade their businesses. Own capital and competitiveness, and improve the position of Chinese enterprises in the world.

Negotiations started in early 2004 on the Central America Free Trade Agreement, later on in the negotiation process the Dominican Republic joined to make CAFTA-DR. The original countries that made up CAFTA were Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua with the Dominican Republic joining forces later on. CAFTA was coupled together with NAFTA and the Canada-Costa Rica Trade Agreement separating them from the Free Trade of the Americas Agreement otherwise known as, FTAA. (WIKI)

Before the 1990s, economic integration in Latin America was overshadowed isolation mechanisms placing barriers between neighboring countries in hopes of developing domestic growth. By the turn of the last decade in the 20th century, more countries became increasingly interested in the potential benefits of deeply integrating nations through cross-border trading. The countries of the Southern Cone of South America courageously took modern economic initiatives. Since then, the region has created mix results of whether their choices have liberated the region of trade barriers or created a fortress all on their own. In this paper I will be focusing on the customs union Mercosur by detailing its creation, discussing the critical events which have contributed to the group’s stagnation, and assessing the group’s current role in the global economy.

Chile has signed Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with a whole network of countries, including a Free Trade Agreement with the United States that was signed in 2003 and was only implemented in January 2004 (En.m.wikipedia.org, 2017).

Free-Trade Agreements are entered into by parties expecting to mutually benefit from the terms of the agreement. Over the course of the past three decades the United States has entered into numerous Free-Trade agreements, most notably with nations throughout the Latin American region. Latin American countries are geographically and economically similar to the U.S., which makes them valuable partners in furthering America’s global initiatives. The United States has seen considerable economic returns since the advent of these free-trade agreements; however, there is a sense of uncertainty when the analysts examine the effects of FTAs on Latin American nations.

One of the economical trends in the past years is to have open markets and to trade among different states. This can be seen more then ever in the Americas where the majority of states are involved in regional trade blocs and also bilateral trade agreements. Since the 1990’s the Free Trade Area of the America’s (FTAA) as been in negotiation, which involves two main groups Southern Common Market (MERCOSUR), which is an economic and political agreement between states such as Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay, Venezuela and associate states Chile, Colombia, Bolivia, Ecuador and Peru. Then there is The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). NAFTA is an

Chile and USA entered into the U.S.-Chile Free Trade Agreements on January 1, 2004. This agreement eliminates tariffs and open markets, reduces barriers for trade in services, provides protection for intellectual property, ensures regulatory transparency, guarantees nondiscrimination in the trade of digital products, commits both parties to maintain competition laws that prohibit anticompetitive business conduct and requires effective labor and environmental enforcement. Through duty elimination, the agreement allows U.S. textile and apparel exporters to

Mimi Thi Nguyen argues in The Gift of Freedom: War, Debt, and Other Refugee Passages that by bestowing upon others some benefits, countries are actually attempting to maintain their future hegemony through placing the recipients in positions of indefinite indebtedness (2012). This opinion is still applicable to the current global power system. Under this system, the voices of the powerful, mainly the United States, are given enough expressions, while the voices of those powerless or that receive the help of the US are frequently suppressed. For example, the notion of establishing Free Trade Area of Americas (FTAA) was firstly proposed in 1994 by the United States, but it has been meeting pressures from the Latin American nations. The resistance of Latin America to FTAA, or global trade and globalization, is its effort to make its voice heard. Latin America, which has a long history of colonization and in the oppressed status, has been closely involved in the global trade network. In the past several decades, as the pace of globalization quickens and the international ties become more and more intimate, international trade is rising in both importance and popularity. Under the force of globalization, at present, almost all Latin American nations, regions and areas are involved in the international trade system to different degrees. In fact, during the colonial period, Latin America was integrated in global trade system. The current global trade network or globalization system

How come Latin America and the Caribbean countries reverse the discourse, after decades of opposition to expansive trade ties with the United States? In most cases, the reversal was caused by a mass wave of in national economic policies and development strategies due to the failure of development from the 1960’s and 1970’s, the give way of debt finance due to the Latin American debt crisis of the 1980s, and the pressures originating from the advance of globalization. The work initiated by Mexico leaders would go on to pressure many Caribbean and Latin American countries into wanting to join trade ties after the intiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement.

1) There are some 200 economic integration agreements in effect around the world already, far more than even a few years ago. Virtually every country is now party to one or more free trade agreements. Supporters argue that free trade is good for nations.

What really is Regional Integration? From when I first heard the term I immediately thought of countries integrating or joining together to achieve some goal. Well, according to EU Learning, Regional Integration is the process by which two or more nation-states agree to co-operate and work closely together to achieve peace, stability and wealth. In other words, regional integration is the joining of individual states within a region into a larger whole. The degree of integration depends upon the willingness and commitment of independent sovereign states to share their sovereignty. It would have as its objective political or economic goals or

According to the United Nations, South-South cooperation is a broad framework for collaboration among countries of the South in the political, economic, social, cultural, environmental and technical domains; involving two or more developing countries with the ability to take on different forms of partnership. Within such cooperation, these countries share knowledge, resources, skills and expertise on different subject matters common to them. This sphere of cooperation is in response to the traditional cooperation which occurs between “North-south” where the North is the dominant hegemonic force that dictates how the dynamics and the relationship works. This has most often left the southern hemispheric country(s) at a disadvantage, economically

In 1994, the leaders of the thirty-four democratic countries of the Western Hemisphere launched the process of creating a Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). The FTAA will be established by 2010 with the aim of gradually eradicating barriers to trade and investment in the region. The final characteristics of the FTAA will be determined through negotiations by government officials from the thirty-four participating countries. The trade issues that are presently under discussion are: market access; investment; services; government procurement; dispute settlement; agriculture; intellectual property; antidumping, subsidies and countervailing duties; and competition policy. Guiding principles for these negotiations

ASEAN was officially founded in August 1967 when five founding member states jointly signed the Bangkok declaration. Since then ASEAN experienced number of threats, such as security threat in cold war, economic and financial threat in 1997 East Asia Economic crisis, and now being in the security dilemma between the United States and the People’s Republic of China, prominent major powers attempting to dominate the region, despite all the threat, ASEAN set its goal to become a community in December 2015 which has lot of potential to contribute to the world stage but it also has countless number of challenges, mainly caused by its diversities, nationalism and lack of