Latin America and the Caribbean had experimented with regional and subregional integration many decades ago; North America had not, until 10 years ago. Efforts were made at various times for more than 100 years to a concluded free-trade (or reciprocity) agreement between Canada and the United States, but none came to fruition until the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Area went into effect in 1989; by contrast, there had been no serious thinking about bringing Mexico into free-trade arrangements with its North American neighbors until NAFTA was negotiated. (MV)