Business Resources for Latin America: Regional Int'l Agreements

The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) is a regional agreement between the Government of Canada, the Government of the United Mexican States and the Government of the United States of America to implement a free trade area.

The United States, Mexico, and Canada have reached an agreement to modernize the 25-year-old NAFTA into a 21st century, high-standard agreement. The new United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) will support mutually beneficial trade leading to freer markets, fairer trade, and robust economic growth in North America. (November 1, 2024)

Mercosur (Spanish: Mercado Común del Sur) is an economic and political agreement among Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay, and Venezuela.
Its purpose is to promote free trade and the fluid movement of goods, people, and currency. Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru currently have associate member status, with Bolivia becoming an accessing member on 7 December 2012.

The Caribbean Community (CARICOM) is an organisation of 15 Caribbean nations and dependencies. CARICOM's main purposes are to promote economic integration and cooperation among its members, to ensure that the benefits of integration are equitably shared, and to coordinate foreign policy. Its major activities involve coordinating economic policies and development planning; devising and instituting special projects for the less-developed countries within its jurisdiction; operating as a regional single market for many of its members (Caricom Single Market); and handling regional trade disputes. The secretariat headquarters is based in Georgetown, Guyana.

The Dominican Republic – Central America Free Trade Agreement, commonly called CAFTA-DR, is a free trade agreement (legally a treaty under international law, but not under US law). Originally, the agreement encompassed the United States and the Central American countries of Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua, and was called CAFTA. In 2004, the Dominican Republic joined the negotiations, and the agreement was renamed CAFTA-DR.The goal of the agreement is the creation of a free trade area, similar to the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) which currently encompasses the US, Canada, and Mexico. CAFTA-DR is also seen as a stepping stone towards the FTAA, another (more ambitious) free trade agreement that would encompass all the South American and Caribbean nations as well as those of North and Central America except Cuba.

In 2007, negotiations began for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a significantly expanded version of the agreement, encompassing a larger group of countries. The TPP is a proposed free trade agreement whose members currently include Australia, Brunei Darussalam, Chile, Canada, Malaysia, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, Vietnam, Mexico, and the United States. Japan has expressed its desire to become a negotiating partner, and South Korea has been officially invited to join the negotiations.The TPP is intended to be a “high-standard” agreement specifically aimed at emerging trade issues in the 21st century.

The Union of South American Nations (Spanish: Unión de Naciones Suramericanas - UNASUR) is an intergovernmental union integrating two existing customs unions: Mercosur and the Andean Community of Nations (CAN), as part of a continuing process of South American integration. It is modeled on the European Union.

The Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (Spanish: Alianza Bolivariana para los Pueblos de Nuestra América, or ALBA) is an international cooperation organization based on the idea of social, political, and economic integration between the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean. It is associated with socialist and social democratic governments and is an attempt at regional economic integration based on a vision of social welfare, bartering and mutual economic aid. The member nations are Antigua and Barbuda, Bolivia, Cuba, Dominica, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines and Venezuela. At the February 2012 summit, Suriname and Saint Lucia were admitted to ALBA as guest countries.