NAFTA's Future: The Three Amigos Will Dance Alone

Less than a year ago, the cordial spirit among members of the North American Free Trade Agreement reached a high-water mark at a plenum of its leaders in Canada in June dubbed the Three Amigos Summit. The next such meeting is unlikely to be as friendly. U.S. President Donald Trump has put NAFTA's foundations squarely in his crosshairs, and more than likely, the three sides will soon enter tense and contentious negotiations over the structure of the trade deal -- if it remains a trilateral pact at all. Trump's calls to revamp the deal have stoked concern in Mexico and Canada, whose economies are deeply intertwined with that of the United States. But with Trump's most withering criticisms of NAFTA directed at Mexico, the negotiations will expose an underlying reality of the pact: NAFTA should be viewed not as a comprehensive trilateral economic union. Rather, it could be seen as more...