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Discussion
This paper analyzes and investigates the trend of regional integration for regional trade agreements NAFTA. ITII of a country with respect to a particular region indicates the country’s contribution to regional integration and RTII represents a ratio of the region’s export within the same region to export to all other countries.
Figure 1 shows RTII for NAFTA regions ad ITII for all countries in the regions. The figure shows RTII for the NAFTA region is almost in 1990 and 2016 with some fluctuations in between.
RTII shown by the red solid line in the figure indicates, the percentage of trade export that NAFTA does within the region compared to all around the world. The RTII trend indicates gradual increment from the inception of NAFTA to downward trend particularly during the global financial slowdowns around the year 2008. The RTII was 0.430114 when the group was formed and reached up to 0.576939 in 2002, then decreased to 0.487429 in 2009, eventually follows increasing trend after financial crisis 2008. Downward trend before 2008 and upward trend after 2000 is noticeable and could be attributed to some other phenomena.
If we look at individual III, Mexico ITII index is highest among three countries followed by Canada and USA. Notably, ITII is moving parallel for three nations.