Imports

At $276.5 billion for Canada and $229.7 billion for Mexico, they were the second and third largest suppliers of goods imports to the United States in 2010.

US goods imports from NAFTA totaled $506.1 billion in 2010, up 25.6% ($103 billion), from 2009, up 184% from 1994, and up 235% from 1993. US imports from NAFTA accounted for 26.5% of overall U.S. imports in 2010.

The five largest categories in 2010 were mineral fuel and oil (crude oil) ($116.2 billion), vehicles ($86.3 billion), electrical machinery ($61.8 billion), machinery ($51.2 billion), and precious stones (gold) ($13.9 billion).

US imports of agricultural products from NAFTA countries totaled $29.8 billion in 2010. Leading categories include fresh vegetables ($4.6 billion); snack foods including chocolate ($4.0 billion); fresh fruit (excluding bananas) ($2.4 billion); live animals ($2.0 billion); and red meats, fresh/chilled/frozen ($2.0 billion).

US imports of private commercial services excluding military and government were $35.5 billion in 2009 (latest data available), down 11.2% ($4.5 billion) from 2008 but up 100% since 1994.

Trade balances

The US goods trade deficit with NAFTA was $94.6 billion in 2010, a 36.4% increase ($25 billion) over 2009.

The US goods trade deficit with NAFTA accounted for 26.8% of the overall U.S. goods trade deficit in 2010.

The US had a services trade surplus of $28.3 billion with NAFTA countries in 2009 (the latest data available).

The US foreign direct investment (FDI) in NAFTA Countries (stock) was $357.7 billion in 2009 (latest data available), up 8.8% from 2008.

The US direct investment in NAFTA countries is in nonbank holding companies, and in the manufacturing, finance/insurance, and mining sectors.

The foreign direct investment, of Canada and Mexico in the United States (stock) was $237.2 billion in 2009 (the latest data available), up 16.5% from 2008.

2. Integration groups of developing countries and problem of their development

The Asociación Latinoamericana de Integración (Latin American Integration Association; known as ALADI or, occasionally, by the English acronym LAIA) is a Latin American trade integration association based in Montevideo, Uruguay. Its main objective is the establishment of a common market, in pursuit of the economic and social development of the region. Signed on August 12, 1960, the Montevideo Treaty is an international legal framework that establishes and governs the Latin American Integration Association. It sets the following general guidelines regarding trade relations between signatory countries: pluralism, convergence, flexibility, differential treatment and multiplicity.

History. The Latin American Free Trade Association (LAFTA) was created in the 1960 Treaty of Montevideo by Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru, and Uruguay. The signatories hoped to create a common market in Latin America and offered tariff rebates among member nations. LAFTA came into effect on January 2, 1962. When the trade association began, it had seven members and its main goal was to eliminate all duties and restrictions on the majority of their trade within 12 years. By the late 1960s, the area of LAFTA had a population of 220 million and produced about $90 billion of goods and services annually. It also had an average per capita gross national product of $440.

The goal of the LAFTA is the creation of a free trade zone in Latin America. It should foster mutual regional trade among the member states, as well as with the US and Canada, the Pacific Union, the African Union, and the European Union. To achieve these goals, several institutions are foreseen:

• the council of foreign ministers

• a conference of all participating countries

• a permanent council

The LAFTA agreement had important limitations: it only refers to goods, not to services, and it does not include a coordination of policies. Compared to the European Union, the political and economic integration was very limited.

By 1970, LAFTA expanded to include four more Latin American nations: Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, and Venezuela. It now consisted of 11 nations. In 1980, LAFTA reorganized into the Latin American Integration Association (ALADI). LAFTA brought many new positive changes to Latin America. With LAFTA in place existing productive capacity could be used more fully to supply regional needs, industries could reduce costs as a result of potential economies through expanded output and regional specialization, and attraction to new investment occurred as a result of the regional market area.

Although LAFTA has brought many constructive results, like other FTAs, it has also brought problems to individual nations and to Latin America as a whole. Some of the problems which individual countries face are the way they are grouped together by their economic strengths according to LAFTA. The grouping was originally Argentina, Brazil, and Chile in one group, Colombia, Chile, Peru, Uruguay, and Venezuela in the second group, and the last group which included Bolivia, Ecuador, and Paraguay. There is a problem in this classification because it ignores the great economic and other differences between the countries. Problems which Latin America faced as a whole had to do with many of the nations in the continent being underdeveloped. The Free Trade Agreement was seen as a way of the countries having greater economic interactions among each other and thus improving the economic state of the poorer nations.

Any Latin-American country can join the 1960 Montevideo Treaty. Cuba was the last to accede, becoming a full member on August 26, 1999. In addition, ALADI is also open to all Latin American countries through agreements with other countries and integration areas of the continent, as well as to other developing countries or their respective integration areas outside Latin America. ALADI is now the largest Latin-American group of integration. It is responsible for regulations on foreign trade which includes regulations on technical measures, sanitary regulations, environment protection measures, quality control measures, automatic licensing measures, price control measures, monopolistic measures, as well as other measures. These regulations are put into place in order for trade to be even handed amongst members of ALADI.

The ALADI promotes the creation of an area of economic preferences in the region, aiming at a Latin American common market, through three mechanisms:

• Regional tariff preference granted to products originating in the member countries, based on the tariffs in force for third countries

• Regional scope agreement, among member countries

• Partial scope agreements, between two or more countries of the area

Either regional or partial scope agreements may cover tariff relief and trade promotion; economic complementation; agricultural trade; financial, fiscal, customs and health cooperation; environmental conservation; scientific and technological cooperation; tourism promotion; technical standards and many other fields. As the Montevideo Treaty is a "framework treaty", by subscribing to it, the governments of the member countries authorize their representatives to legislate through agreements on the economic issues of greatest importance to each country.

A system of preferences — which consists of market opening lists, special cooperation programs (business rounds, preinvestment, financing, technological support) and countervailing measures on behalf of the landlocked countries — has been granted to the countries deemed to be less developed (Bolivia, Ecuador and Paraguay), to favour their full participation in the integration process. As the institutional and normative "umbrella" of regional integration that shelters these agreements as well as the subregional ones (Andean Community, MERCOSUR, G-3 Free Trade Agreement, Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas, etc.) the Association aims to support every effort to create a common economic area.

The Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization (ACTO) is an international organization aimed at the promotion of sustainable development of theAmazon Basin. Its member states are: Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, Suriname and Venezuela. The Amazon Cooperation Treaty (ACT) was signed on 3 July 1978 and amended in 1998. ACTO was created in 1995 to strengthen the implementation of the Treaty. The Permanent Secretariat was later established in Brasilia in 2002.

The Andean Community (Spanish: Comunidad Andina, CAN) is a customs union comprising the South American countries of Bolivia,Colombia, Ecuador and Peru. The trade bloc was called the Andean Pact until 1996 and came into existence with the signing of the Cartagena Agreement in 1969. Its headquarters are located in Lima, Peru.

The Andean Community has 98 million inhabitants living in an area of 4,700,000 square kilometers, whose Gross Domestic Product amounted to US$745.3 billion in 2005, including Venezuela, (who was a member at that time). Its estimated GDP PPP for 2011 amounts to US$902.86 billion, excluding Venezuela.

The original Andean Pact was founded in 1969 by Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru. In 1973, the pact gained its sixth member, Venezuela. In 1976, however, its membership was again reduced to five when Chile withdrew. Venezuela announced its withdrawal in 2006, reducing the Andean Community to four member states.

Recently, with the new cooperation agreement with Mercosur, the Andean Community gained four new associate members: Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay. These four Mercosur members were granted associate membership by the Andean Council of Foreign Ministers meeting in an enlarged session with the Commission (of the Andean Community) on July 7, 2005. This moves reciprocates the actions of Mercosur which granted associate membership to all the Andean Community nations by virtue of the Economic Complementarity Agreements (Free Trade agreements) signed between the CAN and individual Mercosur members.

The Association of Caribbean States (ACS; Spanish: Asociación de Estados del Caribe; French: Association des États de la Caraïbe) is a union of nations centered around the Caribbean Basin. It was formed with the aim of promoting consultation, cooperation, and concerted action among all the countries of the Caribbean. The primary purpose of the ACS is to develop greater trade between the nations, enhance transportation, develop sustainable tourism, and facilitate greater and more effective responses to local natural disasters.

It comprises twenty-five member states and four associate members.^[1] The convention establishing the ACS was signed on July 24, 1994 inCartagena de Indias, Colombia. The secretariat of the organisation is located in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago.

The Turks and Caicos Islands formally sought to became the Association's newest associate member on March 28, 2006.

The Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (Spanish: Alianza Bolivariana para los Pueblos de Nuestra América, or ALBA) is an international cooperation organization based on the idea of the social, political and economic integration of the countries of Latin America and theCaribbean. It is associated with socialist and social democratic governments and is an attempt at regional economic integration based on a vision of social welfare, bartering and mutual economic aid. The member nations are Antigua and Barbuda, Bolivia, Cuba, Dominica, Ecuador, Nicaragua,Saint Vincent and the Grenadines and Venezuela. At the February 2012 summit, Suriname and Saint Lucia were admitted to ALBA as guest countries. ALBA nations are in the process of introducing a new regional currency, the SUCRE. It was intended to be the common virtual currency by 2010 and eventually a hard currency. On Tuesday, July 6, 2010, Venezuela and Ecuador conducted the first bilateral trade deal between two ALBA countries using the new trading currency, the Sucre, instead of the US dollar. The name initially contained "Alternative" instead of "Alliance", but was changed on June 24, 2009.

The Caribbean Community (CARICOM) is an organisation of 15 Caribbean nations and dependencies. CARICOM's main purposes are to promote economic integration and cooperation among its members, to ensure that the benefits of integration are equitably shared, and to coordinate foreign policy. Its major activities involve coordinating economic policies and development planning; devising and instituting special projects for the less-developed countries within its jurisdiction; operating as a regional single market for many of its members (Caricom Single Market); and handling regional trade disputes. The secretariat headquarters is based in Georgetown, Guyana.

Since the establishment of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) by the mainly English-speaking parts of the Caribbean region, CARICOM has become multilingual in practice with the addition of Dutch speaking-Suriname on 4 July 1995 and French- (and Haitian Kreyòl-) speaking Haiti on 2 July 2002. Furthermore, it was suggested that Spanish should also become a working language. In July 2012, CARICOM announced that they were considering making French and Dutch official languages.

3. Consolidation of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay signed the agreement providing creation of the total market — MERCOSUR (Mercado Comun del Sur — MERCOSUR). Purposes, tasks, prospects MERCOSUR. Commodity structure of export and import to MERCOSUR

Mercosur or Mercosul (Spanish: Mercado Común del Sur, Portuguese: Mercado Comum do Sul, Guarani: Ñemby Ñemuha, English: Southern Common Market) is an economic and political agreement among Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay, and Venezuela; with Bolivia becoming an accessing member on 7 December 2012 to be ratified by the Member State's legislatures.

It was established in 1991 by the Treaty of Asunción, which was later amended and updated by the 1994 Treaty of Ouro Preto.

Its purpose is to promote free trade and the fluid movement of goods, people, and currency. The official languages are Guaraní, Portuguese and Spanish. It has been updated, amended, and changed many times since. It is now a full customs union. Mercosur and the Andean Community of Nations are customs unions that are components of a continuing process of South American integration connected to the Union of South American Nations.

Mercosur originated in 1985, when Presidents Raúl Alfonsín of Argentina and José Sarney of Brazil signed the Argentina-Brazil Integration and Economics Cooperation Program or PICE (Portuguese: Programa de Integração e Cooperação Econômica Argentina-Brasil, Spanish: Programa de Integración y Cooperación Económica Argentina-Brasil). The program also proposed the Gaucho as a currency for regional trade.

The founding of the Mercosur Parliament was agreed at the December 2004 presidential summit. It should have 18 representatives from each country by 2010, regardless of population.

Full membership for Venezuela became effective on 31 July 2012, after the suspension of Paraguay on 22 June 2012 for the violation of the Democratic Clause of Mercosur (see Impeachment of Fernando Lugo). Beforehand, Venezuela had signed a membership agreement on 17 June 2006 but its accession was blocked by the Senate of Paraguay.

Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru currently have associate member status.

The Southern Common Market promotes:

• The free transit of produced goods, services and factors among the member states. Among other things, this includes the elimination of customs rights and lifting of nontariff restrictions on the transit of goods or any other measures with similar effects;

• Fixing of a common external tariff (CET) and adopting of a common trade policy with regard to nonmember states or groups of states, and the coordination of positions in regional and international commercial and economic meetings;

• Coordination of macroeconomic and sectorial policies of member states relating to foreign trade, agriculture, industry, taxes, monetary system, exchange and capital, services, customs, transport and communications, and any others they may agree on, in order to ensure free competition between member states;

• The commitment by the member states to make the necessary adjustments to their laws in pertinent areas to allow for the strengthening of the integration process. The Asunción Treaty is based on the doctrine of the reciprocal rights and obligations of the member states. Mercosur initially targeted free-trade zones, then customs unification, and finally a common market. The common market will allow (in addition to customs unification) the free movement of manpower and capital across the member nations, and depends the grating of equal rights and duties to all member countries. Because member states will implement the trade liberalization at different speeds, during the transition period the rights and obligations of each party will initially be equivalent but not necessarily equal. In addition to the reciprocity doctrine, the Asunción Treaty also contains provisions for the most-favored nation concept. This concept is that after the common market is formed, member nations are to automatically extend to the other members any advantage, favor, entitlement, immunity or privilege granted to a product originating from or intended for countries that are not party to the Latin American Integration Association (ALADI).

Merchandise trade

Intra-Mercosur merchandise trade (excluding Venezuela) grew from US$10 billion at the inception of the trade bloc in 1991, to US$88 billion in 2010; Brazil and Argentina each accounted for 43% of this total. The trade balance within the bloc has historically been tilted toward Brazil, which recorded an intra-Mercosur balance of over US$5 billion in 2010. Trade within Mercosur amounted to only 16% of the four countries' total merchandise trade in 2010, however; trade with the European Union (20%), China (14%), and the United States (11%) was of comparable importance. Exports from the bloc are highly diversified, and include a variety of agricultural, industrial, and energy goods. Merchandise trade with the rest of the world in 2010 resulted in a surplus for Mercosur of nearly US$7 billion; trade in services, however, was in deficit by over US$28 billion. The EU and China maintained a nearly balanced merchandise trade with Mercosur in 2010, while the United States reaped a surplus of over US$14 billion; Mercosur, in turn, earned significant surpluses (over US$4 billion each in 2010) in its trade with Chile and Venezuela. The latter became a full member in 2012.

Country	Population in 2011 (In thousands)	GDP (nominal) in 2011 (USD millions)	GDP (nominal) per capita	GDP (PPP) in 2011(USD millions)	GDP (PPP) per capita	Merchandise exports ($ billions), 2011	Merchandise imports ($ billions), 2011	Exports to Mercosur (% of each, 2010)	Imports from Mercosur (% of each, 2010)
Argentina	40,900	447,644	10,945	716,419	17,516	84.3	73.9	25.2	33.6
Brazil	194,933	2,492,908	12,789	2,294,203	11,769	250.8	219.6	11.1	8.9
Paraguay	6,530	21,236	3,252	35,346	5,413	9.8	12.1	29.0	42.0
Uruguay	3,369	46,872	13,914	50,908	15,113	8.0	10.7	33.8	48.8
Venezuela	29,767	315,841	10,610	374,111	12,568	92.6	46.4	2.4	18.0
Total	275,499	3,324,501	12,067	3,471,027	12,599	445.5	362.7	13.2	16.8

Trade Commission

The Trade Commission will assist the Mercosur executive body, always striving to apply the instruments of common trade policy agreed to by the member states for operation of the customs unification. Additionally, the commission should also follow up on the development of issues and matters related to common trade policies, the intra-Mercosur trade and trade with other countries. The commission will have five actual members and four alternates, with each member nation's indicating a member. The Trade Commission shall exert every effort to apply common trade policy instruments such as: Trade agreements with other countries or international entities; Administrative/commercial product lists; Final adaptation system for Mercosur customs unification; Origin system; Free-trade zone system, special customs areas and export processing zones; System to discourage unfair trade practices; Elimination and harmonization of tariff restrictions; Nonmember country safeguard systems; Customs coordination and harmonization; Consumer protection systems; and Export incentive harmonization.

Furthermore, the trade commission should speak out regarding the issues raised by the member states regarding application and compliance with common offshore tariffs and other common trade policy instruments. The commission shall meet at least once a month, as well as whenever asked to by the Mercosur executive agency or by a member state. The commission can take decisions entailing administration and application of trade policies adopted under Southern Common Market, and whenever necessary submit proposals to the executive body regarding regulation of the areas under its authority; additionally, it can propose new guidelines or modify those in existence in Mercosur trade and customs matters. In this respect, the trade commission can propose a change in the import duty on specific items under common external tariffs, including cases referring to development of new Mercosur production activities. In order to better achieve its objectives, the trade commission can create technical committees targeting direction and supervision of the work it engages in. It can also adopt internal operating regulations. Proposals and decisions of the trade commission will be taken by a consensus of the representatives indicated by each member nation. Any disputes ensuing from the application, interpretation or compliance with the acts issued by the trade commission are to be referred to the Mercosur executive body, and should be resolved using the directives set forth in the Dispute Resolution System adopted under Southern Common Market.

Free Trade Zones

The member nations can have commercial free-trade zones, industrial free-trade zones, export processing zones, and special customs areas, all of which target providing merchandise marketed or produced in these areas with treatment different from that afforded in their respective customs territories.

Tariffs

The member states can assess merchandise from these areas with the common external tariff used for Mercosur merchandise, or, in the case of certain special products, the domestic tariff prevailing in each individual state. In this way, the products from the free-trade zones can have the more favorable tax treatment established under Southern Common Market, given to the merchandise produced in the normal customs zones of each member state or, in the case of certain special products, can have the normal customs treatment prevailing in each nation.

Safeguards

Products produced or marketed in the free-trade zones of each member nation will be eligible for the safeguard system whenever this entails an increase not provided for in imports, but capable of causing damages or threatened damages to the importer country.