It is difficult to overstate the importance of the North American Free Trade Agreement for the evolution of the global trade regime. NAFTA marked the first preferential trade agreement across the North–South divide negotiated under Article XXIV of the GATT. It also signified a major diversion off the course of multilateralism by the United States, the co-founder and often the most important promoter of the international institutions that “embedded” liberalism (Ruggie 1982) in the post-World War II era. The United States had negotiated only two free trade agreements previously – the United States–Israel FTA, signed in 1985 to extend strategic support to Israel (Destler 1986: 26), and the 1987 Canada–United States FTA (CUSFTA), the result of a turnaround in Canadian policy after almost a century of resisting US advances. Neither agreement, however, had much potential to affect outsiders. Israel's regional political isolation left it entirely dependent on European and US trade in any case. Canada lowered its MFN tariffs below US levels in the Uruguay Round and participated actively in the GATS, thereby limiting the discrimination against outsiders.

Mexico's desire to sign a trade agreement with the United States surprised even the most prominent experts and inspired a considerable body of research (Bulmer-Thomas et al. 1994; Cameron 1997; Grinspun and Cameron 1993; Pastor and Wise 1994). Perhaps most importantly, NAFTA became the template for a multitude of North–South agreements across the globe.