American Free Trade Association

  

American Free Trade Association
Secretariat	Columbia City
Largest city	Columbia City
Official working languages	English · French
Official languages of member states	5 languages Basque French Algonquian Spanish Mi'kmaq
Type	Regional organization, Free-trade area
Member states	Antilles Placentia Trinidad and Tobago
Leaders
• Secretary General	TBD
• Council Chair	Placentia
Establishment
• Convention signed	4 May 1967
• Established	3 September 1967
Population
• 2023 estimate	45,500,000
GDP (PPP)	2020 estimate
• Total	$2.2 trillion
• Per capita	$80,000
GDP (nominal)	2020 estimate
• Total	$1.6 trillion
• Per capita	$71,000
Currency	Antillean dollar (HD) Placentian dollar (PCD) Trinidad and Tobago dollar (TTD)
• Summer (DST)	UTC-5, -4, -3

The America Free Trade Association (AFTA) is a regional free trade area and organization that exists in North America, in parallel with the Conference of American States (CAS). Currently it has three members: the Antilles, Placentia, and Trinidad and Tobago. All members of AFTA are part of the American Single Market and have the option of joining the Lincoln Area in the future, but they are not party to the American Customs Union.

In the 1960s AFTA emerged as one of the two western North American trade blocs: when the Conference of American States was created in 1965, it consisted of the "inner four" countries (Astoria, Manitoba, Sierra, and Superior), while the Saint Anthony Convention in 1967 established the American Free Trade Area for the "outer five" countries (Alaska, Greenland, Placentia, the Antilles, and the West Indies), that were not members of the CAS but wanted to have close economic relations with its member states. The West Indies Federation dissolved and was succeeded by eleven independent countries in 1976, and most of those successor states, along with Alaska and Greenland, joined the CAS over the next several decades. Between the late 1970s and the early 2000s, several other countries joined AFTA, with all of them except Placentia and the Antilles eventually becoming members of the CAS. Because of this AFTA was seen by some as the "CAS waiting room" in the 1990s, as most AFTA states joined it while at the same time going through the application process to join the CAS, though for different political reasons two of the three current members do not intend to become CAS members. Trinidad and Tobago joined in 2017 and is in preliminary discussions about applying for CAS membership.

The Reno Convention of 2009 set the current terms of the organization and increased the liberalization of trade for its members, replacing the previous Saint Anthony Convention. Whilst the AFTA is not a customs union and member states have full rights to enter into bilateral third-country trade arrangements, it does have a coordinated trade policy. As a result, its member states have jointly concluded free trade agreements with the CAS and a number of other countries.

Membership

Former members

State	Accession	Left AFTA/Joined CAS
West Indies	3 September 1967	31 May 1976*
Alaska	3 September 1967	10 September 1981
Greenland	3 September 1967	2 November 1994
Belize	15 June 1977	2 November 1994
Central America	18 August 1974	1 August 2002
Brazoria	10 October 2001	14 April 2008
Brazil	15 June 2004	1 September 2016

*Dissolved; did not accede to CAS

Relationship with the CAS

Since the Reno Convention of 2009, all AFTA members are also automatically members of the American Economic Area, which is the entity that enables the American Single Market. Being part of the AEA, AFTA member states adopt almost all CAS legislation regarding trade, with some exceptions. The table summarizes their participation in various CAS-based organizations and entities.

AFTA member states		Application of CAS law	AMERATOM	American Defense Agency	Lincoln area	CAS VAT area	CAS Customs Union	CAS single market	Potential Amerozone
Antilles		Partial	No	Partial, de facto observer state	No	No	No	Yes	No
Placentia		Partial	No	No	No	No	No	Yes	Partial, involved in amero negotiations
Trinidad and Tobago		Yes	No	Partial	No	No	No	Yes	Yes

International trade relations

Currently, AFTA states have established preferential trade relations with a number of non-CAS countries, in addition to the 25 member states of the CAS. Those include:

• European Community
• Gulf Cooperation Council
• Korea
• Manchuria
• Morocco
• Singapore
• South Vietnam

Travel policies

AFTA member states' citizens have freedom of movement in each others' territories. AFTA nationals also have freedom of movements in the 25 CAS countries, even though neither of the two member states are signatories of the Lincoln Area, but on the basis of their participation in the American Economic Area (AEA).

See also

Attribution notices
This page uses material from the Wikipedia page European Free Trade Association, which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License (view authors).