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Latin America Initiative | Issue Brief
The Consequences of Preferential Trade Agreements: Lessons for U.S.-Latin America Trade Relations
While academic and popular debates tend to focus on differential benefits and costs of trade across countries or industries, this brief highlights winners and losers at the level of individual firms. The authors demonstrate that preferential liberalization produces concentrated benefits among a relatively small number of very large and productive firms.
Pablo M. Pinto, Leonardo Baccini, Stephen Weymouth November 21, 2017
A gavel rests in front of the Mexican flag.
State-building, the Modernization of the Legal System, and Institutional Effectiveness in Mexico: Notes on the 2013–2014 Energy Reform
Nobody can ensure that the economic gamble underlying the 2013–2014 energy reform will achieve the desired or expected success. However, the author presents evidence demonstrating that Mexico has gradually been building the institutions that will be able to perform governmental operations with reasonable effectiveness.
Héctor Fix-Fierro November 14, 2017
A natural gas plant in Russia.
Russia's Use of the "Energy Weapon" in Europe
This brief quantifies the potential exposure of key European countries to Russian gas price and supply manipulation, shows how Moscow has used energy as an instrument of coercive diplomacy since the early 1990s, and briefly assesses the impacts and future policy implications of Russian entities’ past use of the “energy weapon” in and near Europe. Although it has not been widely successful to date in the former Soviet zone, Russia's use of the energy weapon against Western European countries in various forms still constitutes a strategic threat that warrants close attention from policymakers in Washington and throughout Europe, writes fellow Gabriel Collins.
Gabriel Collins July 18, 2017
Trucks transport cargo across the U.S.-Mexico border
Was NAFTA Good for the United States?
NAFTA has neither been the enormous success that its supporters believe, nor the disaster that its detractors claim. Renegotiating NAFTA — or even threatening to repeal it — is not a high-stakes proposition. The treaty simply does not possess the leverage to deliver a major boost or setback to the U.S. manufacturing sector. 
Tony Payan, Russell Green June 25, 2017
Trade containers behind a fence.
NAFTA Does Not Matter as Much as You Think (But Renegotiation Matters a Lot)
Most analysis of NAFTA begins by citing the huge increase in bilateral trade between the U.S., Canada and Mexico since 1993. U.S.-Mexico trade—exports plus imports—has grown three and a half times faster than U.S. GDP since NAFTA began in 1994. If NAFTA were solely responsible for that trade, renegotiating it on more favorable terms might have big payoffs. However, there are seven problems with thinking NAFTA has mattered or can matter very much.
Russell Green, Tony Payan June 19, 2017