United States-Canada Trade and Economic Relationship: Prospects and Challenges

Abstract

The United States and Canada conduct the world's largest bilateral trade relationship, with total merchandise trade (exports and imports) exceeding $596.9 billion in 2008. The U.S.-Canadian relationship revolves around the themes of integration and asymmetry: integration from successive trade liberalization from the U.S.-Canada Auto Pact of 1965 leading to North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), and asymmetry resulting from Canadian dependence on the U.S. market and from the disparate size of the two economies. The economies of the United States and Canada are highly integrated, a process that has been accelerated by the bilateral U.S.-Canada free trade agreement (FTA) of 1988 and the NAFTA of 1994. Both are affluent industrialized economies, with similar standards of living and industrial structure. However, the two economies diverge in size, per capita income, productivity and net savings.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
May 13, 2009
Accession Number
ADA501065

Entities

People

  • Ian F. Fergusson

Organizations

  • Library of Congress

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Biomedical
  • Energy and Power Technologies
  • Space

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Border Security
  • Commerce
  • Congress
  • Department Of Homeland Security
  • Geography
  • Government Procurement
  • Governments
  • Health Services
  • Homeland Security
  • Intellectual Property
  • International Trade
  • Investments
  • Law
  • Manufacturing
  • National Governments
  • North America
  • United States

Fields of Study

  • Economics

Readers

  • Economics
  • International Relations and European Studies