The impact of economic integration on Canada's automotive industry following the implementation of the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA)

This bachelor's thesis aims to find out what effect the renegotiation of the NAFTA trade agreement and the implementation of the subsequent USMCA had on Canada's automotive industry. To fulfill this objective, two research questions were set in the thesis: What is the difference between the NAFTA agreement and the USMCA, and what were the main reasons for the renegotiation and its subsequent effects? And how was Canada's automotive industry subsequently affected by this renegotiation? This work is divided into three chapters. The first chapter is theoretical and lays a comprehensive theoretical foundation on economic integration for the subsequent evaluation of the set questions. The second chapter is devoted to the first research question and, by comparing both trade agreements, leads to the conclusion that the main reason for the renegotiation of the NAFTA agreement itself was the initiative of the D. Trump Administration order to reduce the US trade deficit and support the American economy. Another partial conclusion is that the most significant changes during the implementation of the USMCA affected the automotive industry, which faces significant tightening, especially regarding regional value. In the third chapter, the main objective of the work is fulfilled, and the second research question is answered, using the analysis of indicators such as the production of the automotive industry of Canada or the export and import of the production of this industry. The work concludes that the implementation of the USCMA agreement in 2020 has not had a measurable negative impact on the Canadian automotive industry so far; all indicators show a positive growth trend, and the analysis carried out was limited due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.