New Regionalism in World Politics. Example of the United States of America in Conditions of Western Hemisphere

Abstract

This article deals with regional integration agreements as one of the key
tendencies of the international economic relations. Regionalism could be a
way of the world trade liberalisation opening its multilateral form
alternative. The U.S. started to emphasise the regional integration in the
late 1980s. Nowadays, the reason for American approach is often said to be
due to the competitive liberalisation strategy. Within the regional
liberalisation, the important U.S. interests can be supported more efficiently
than in its multilateral form. The establishment of NAFTA serves as an
example in the North America. Nevertheless, further regional integration
based on the FTAA completion is much more difficult as the NAFTA
experience cannot be simply applied to other integration agreements.
Concerning the U.S. approach, a conclusion can be drawn that despite their
general acceptance of multilateralism the U.S. uses regional integration
agreements pragmatically to compensate for the insufficiency of the
multilateral liberalisation.