Essays

Although the North American Free Trade Agreement succeeded in liberalizing trade, over the 20 years since the treaty entered into force, it has failed to deepen links between the Canadian, U.S., and Mexican economies. It’s not too late to play catch-up, so policymakers should tear down the remaining barriers to complete economic integration.

Obamacare’s success will not mean a leap to socialism, nor would its failure mean the end of liberalism. What the ACA really represents is yet another step on the United States' long, halting journey away from the classical liberal capitalist state and toward a peculiarly American version of social democracy.

As the recent era of interventionist U.S. state building draws to a close, it is time to acknowledge it was flawed not only in execution, but also in conception. Washington's obsession with weak states was more of a mania than a sound strategic doctrine.

Twenty years after the North American Free Trade Agreement came into effect, the deal has brought neither the huge gains its proponents promised nor the dramatic losses its adversaries warned of. For Mexico, NAFTA did increase exports, but its impact on spurring economic growth and creating jobs has been less clear-cut.