North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA):

The North American Free Trade Agreement between the United States, Canada, and Mexico (NAFTA) was formed on January 1, 1994. NAFTA is considered as one of the world's most powerful and successful treaties as well as the world's largest free trade area, which now links 444 million people producing $17 trillion worth of goods and services. All remaining duties and quantitative restrictions were eliminated, as scheduled, on January 1, 2008. The objectives of this Agreement, as elaborated more specifically through its principles and rules, including national treatment, most-favored-nation treatment and transparency, are to:

• Eliminate barriers to trade in, and facilitate the cross-border movement of, goods and services between the territories of the Parties.
• Promote conditions of fair competition in the free trade area.
• Increase substantially investment opportunities in the territories of the Parties.
• Provide adequate and effective protection and enforcement of intellectual property rights in each Party's territory.
• Create effective procedures for the implementation and application of this Agreement, for its joint administration and for the resolution of disputes.
• Establish a framework for further trilateral, regional and multilateral cooperation to expand and enhance the benefits of this Agreement.  

The achievements of NAFTA are from 1993 to 2007, there was percentage increment of goods exports by 231% to the U.S from Canada and Mexico. The challenges for NAFTA are:

• Resolve current trade disputes pertaining to sugar, softwood lumber and trucking, just to mention a few.
• Address the issue of 10 million illegal Mexican immigrants in the US.
• Include Mexico in important provisions relating to investments.
• Enable funding and adequate mandates for key institutions like NADBank (North American Development Bank).
• Resolve the trade deficit of the US with Canada and Mexico, which grew from $9.1 billion in 1993 to $138.5 billion in 2007. 

Promoting economic integration is not easy for any treaty but NAFTA rose to do just that. In 1994, NAFTA was established with a $6 trillion economy. By 2004, NAFTA grew to an economy of $12.5 trillion.