Abstract
The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) increasingly looks like a "one shot" deal with little of the ongoing deepening of economic relationship expected at the time of its negotiation and no provisions for ongoing negotiations. As a result, alternative-trading arrangements may provide an opportunity to move the North American Trade agenda forward. The Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) is one alternative, however, it is an extremely ambitious undertaking bringing together a large number of very divergent economies in terms of size, stage of economic development, economic performance and economic philosophy. This increases the complexity of negotiations and the probability of failure. The paper outlines the major areas where negotiations are likely to be difficult and provides suggestions regarding what has been learned from the NAFTA experience that is relevant to the FTAA.By submitting a contribution to consideration of the Editorial Board of Fórum Empresarial, the authors attest that it is an original, unpublished work, which has not been nor will be simultaneously submitted to another journal for consideration and publication; that they are responsible for the work carried out and the content of the article; and they have the corresponding copyrights.
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