Free Trade for the Americas

This book focuses on the proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas Agreement. This US initiative aims to replicate the NAFTA Agreement (binding the USA, Canada and Mexico into a free trade area since 1994) across all 34 countries of South and North America (except Cuba). This huge integrated continental market will be built around US-defined notions of free trade and protection of foreign investment, but will exclude the free movement of labour. This volume explains the origins and ongoing process of the negotiations and explains why the US wants to expand its NAFTA model. It makes clear that investment protection, in addition to trade, is at the heart of the new agreement. And it examines in-depth the possible consequences for Mercosur, Brazil, and the region's many small economies. The book - the first comprehensive, in-depth study - should be of use to trade theorists, international economists, and all those interested in the mysterious ongoing FTAA process.