To understand the process of economic integration in the Americas since the Miami
Summit of 1994, when negociations toward the setting up of a Free Trade Area of
the Americas (FTAA) were launched, I will start off with the issue of hemispheric
economic integration as it stood fifty years ago, and compare this to what is now
recognized as a global order.1 To set up this comparison, I will establish a clear-cut
distinction between a world view and a global view, between the « mondial » and the
« global » as we say in French. Subsequently, I will explain why, in order to
understand the implication of the FTAA project, it is important to focus on the
features of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) : these features will
reveal that the project of free trade is not so much about trade, but about
governance. This approach supports the argument that the FTAA plays a central
role in setting up a new global order, the spirit of which is so aptly expressed in the
introductoty quotation by T. L. Friedman.

(Suite dans le document joint)