When the "Three Amigos"- more formally known as US President George Bush, Mexican President Vicente Fox, and Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin-met in Waco, Texas in 2005, they aimed to expand integration beyond 1994's landmark NAFTA. But such optimism met with hostility from constituents, many of whom increasingly view economic liberalization as a raw deal. Indeed, in recent months Democratic presidential candidates Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton have pledged to renegotiate NAFTA or opt out, Texans have marched against an alleged "NAFTA superhighway," and Mexican farmers have protested tariff cuts that flooded the market with subsidized US corn. The agreement's economic benefits remain controversial, and economists continue to deliberate over the merits of NAFTA and its successors. The issue at hand, however, lies in the intersection between policy and politics-not merely in the economic gains or losses that trade brings, but in the perceptions and fears of workers and producers from Chiapas to Calgary.

Free-trade idealists and protectionists alike can find economic support for their positions on NAFTA, which has hardly been the unqualified disaster some critics allege. Overall trade in goods between the three countries has increased 198 percent in the past 15 years, with US intra- NAFTA exports rising 157 percent and imports 231 percent. Analyses have shown, however, that as much as 85 percent of this growth may have been independent of NAFTA's impact. The agreement's impact on economic growth has been similarly minimal, with GDP increases of just .04 percent in the United States and .8 percent in Mexico. The effect of NAFTA on employment is unclear: it appears to have resulted in small employment increases in both Mexico and the United States, but the overall statistics conceal potentially meaningful shifts in the manufacturing and agricultural sectors. Finally, NAFTA has helped to exacerbate, if only slightly, the wage gap between skilled and unskilled workers in both countries. In short, the widespread criticism and praise received by NAFTA is rather disproportional to its actual impact, which has been relatively moderate at best.

Despite these mixed results, the three leaders are continuing to look for ways to expand and standardize trade in the Americas. Beginning in 2001 with the Quebec City summit, trade officials began planning the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), which would have linked 34 countries in the largest postwar plan for free trade. But the proposal, which was to be signed in 2005, was defeated by a massive upswell of populist opposition, particularly in Latin America. Meanwhile, North American officials pressed for so-called "deep integration" of the continent, which would include harmonization of regulatory, trade, and security policies. These discussions culminated in the Security and Prosperity Partnership of the Americas (SPP), an agreement signed at Waco that stressed incremental reforms and increased cooperation. The key to the SPP was security, in light of the US' new desire to strike a balance between free trade and the security of its borders. Thus the SPP, while attempting to eliminate barriers to capital flow across borders for transnational corporations, also privileges US national security interests over the strict economic orthodoxy of open borders. As North American governments move forward with bold integration plans, such delicate balancing acts between national sovereignty and regional integration will become more prominent.

Meanwhile, the integrationist tendencies of government officials have been countered by a rear-guard action in the form of populism and nationalism. This opposition has been aimed not just at further NAFTA expansion, but at NAFTA itself. Conservatives and protectionists in the United States have critiqued both the "North American Union" allegedly envisioned by the SPP as well as US manufacturing job losses caused by NAFTA. In Mexico, US agricultural subsidies have led to strong opposition to NAFTA among farmers, whose crops can no longer be protected by tariffs. Even though Mexico's farm exports to its NAFTA partners have tripled, many peasant farmers and opposition politicians, such as those from the National Action Party and the Institutional Revolutionary Party, press for greater protection of farmers. Subsistence farmers suffer the most as large monopolies such as the Grupo Maseca, which controls 85 percent of the maize fl our market, take over their sources of income. In Canada, which has had free trade agreements with the US since 1988, opinions of NAFTA are generally positive. Yet even in that country, some raise concerns over the need to conform to US border regulations, as well as the fear that Canadian water resources could be commoditized and sold off to corporations.

These concerns may be ameliorated by opinion polls consistently showing strong public support for NAFTA and globalization. Recent polls have shown that 62 percent of Mexicans and 70 percent of Canadians support NAFTA. Sentiments are more mixed in the United States, but 49 percent of Americans believe that NAFTA has been good for the United States, and only 39 percent believe it has been bad. Interestingly, majorities in all three countries feel that on balance, their country has come out as a loser in regional trade-a paradoxical outcome that shows the political tensions of integration. Politicians have echoed this ambivalence. While Barack Obama has railed against the treaty in stump speeches, his economic advisers have signaled that his opposition is focused on NAFTA's labor and environmental provisions, not a fundamental opposition to integration. Moreover, both Obama and Clinton have been chastised by commentators and economists for appearing to "demagogue" the issue, indicating a pro-NAFTA outlook among elites in the media and academic worlds.

The backlash of protectionism and sovereignty concerns from all sides is reflective of the general difficulty of persuading many Americans of the benefits of free trade. Ordinary citizens do not see the extra social surplus that the graphs of microeconomists depict. Rather, they see a short run rise in unemployment rates, which elevates fears of job loss to other workers. While some of these fears may be unwarranted, as previous economic studies of NAFTA have demonstrated, they nonetheless can skew political discourse toward protectionist stances and appeals to nationalism. NAFTA's future now depends on the political clout of its supporters or detractors, rather than on the substance of unbiased and thorough economic analyses. As long as the general North American public continues to waver on the merits of free trade, the forward trajectory of future agreements will continue to face substantial resistance.