NAFTA had a rough start, marked by a peasant rebellion in Chiapas, Mexico's southernmost state, on the first day of 1994. The rebellion was meant to draw attention to the likelihood that agricultural families in South Mexico would be hurt by NAFTA, something that not only came true but was still a reason for protests in September when the World Trade Organization met in Cancun, Mexico.

Nevertheless, NAFTA has been a broader success in terms of trade activity.

Trade among the United States, Mexico and Canada totaled $343 billion in 1994, the pact's first year. By 2002, the total had risen to $653 billion, a solid increase across the board. The final 2003 trade figure for North America might even show a doubling in trade volumes for the first decade of NAFTA.

Foreign direct investment has risen for all three NAFTA nations in the first decade of the agreement, but the change in Mexico is the most notable. Between 1989 and 1993, Mexico averaged $3.7 billion per year in investments in plants, land and equipment from foreign companies.

Between 1994 and 2000, however, Mexico averaged $12.3 billion in foreign direct investment. Sixty-seven percent of the accumulated foreign direct investment came from the United States.

That resulted in some manufacturing job shifts occurred, of course, but total employment, wages and standards of living are higher across the continent.

NAFTA actually did not start the trend of Mexico integrating its economy with the United States and Canada. That process started in 1986 when Mexico opened its economy by joining the global General Agreement and Tariffs and Trade (now known as the World Trade Organization).

NAFTA simply codified the process and added some general protections for investments that crossed borders, along with a tariff reduction schedule. Non-agriculture tariffs, by and large, are at or near zero.

NAFTA essentially added more than 90 million people to the former U.S.-Canada Free Trade Agreement by expanding it to include Mexico. Mexico now has an estimated population of 103.7 million people. The United States in 2003 has a population of 290.34 million. Canada's population is 32.2 million.

Among the protections were additional strengthening of technology transfer and intellectual property enforcements and the removal of the threat that Mexico could nationalize industries, as it had in the past, especially in banking and energy.

But the growth in trade and investment in Mexico was strong long before the congressional votes in 1993 because of Mexico improving infrastructure, available labor and export-oriented governmental policies that included privatization of numerous industries.

One key provision of NAFTA has not yet been enacted. The cross-border trucking provision would have allowed same driver-same truck delivery between U.S. and Mexican border-states starting in December 1995 and continent-wide in 2000. But the Clinton administration blocked the trucking provision in December 1995 after the Teamsters raised objections.

The trucking provision, which is meant to reduce transportation costs across the continent by making the borders more seamless, has been tied up in Congress and the courts since then. Some observers say the delay has been at the expense of North American competitiveness with other regional trade blocs.

The U.S. Department of Transportation now is conducting an environmental impact study of the effects of Mexican long-haul truck fleets on U.S. highways, which means another nine months to one year before the matter is considered in court again, said Blake Hastings, executive director of the Free Trade Alliance in San Antonio.

The alliance has been fighting for the enactment of the trucking provisions since before 1995.

Dissolving NAFTA is not a consideration these days, but the future of NAFTA in the context of global and hemispheric trade trends is definitely a matter of debate.

The possible expansion of NAFTA into a hemispheric trade agreement received a boost earlier this year when Congress approved a U.S.-Chile trade pact. The pact awaits ratification in Chile before taking effect.

But the goal of a Free Trade Agreement of the Americas (FTAA) by 2005 is fading as negotiations are bogged down in details and daunting conflicts of competing interests. Agriculture is one of those, especially the gap between poor, agricultural countries and developed nations with large agricultural subsidies.

Hastings said the FTAA is still five years from the completion of negotiations.

Mexico also is looking ahead because the final clauses of NAFTA go into effect in 2010, leaving Mexico shorn of new advantages to draw foreign industrial investments.

Victor Lopez Villafane, the director North American Studies for the Monterrey Technical Institute, recently said, in the Mexican press, that the challenge for North America in the next three years is what will be next after NAFTA.

Villafane said the next trade agreement must include China, a country that has received a wave of investments in textiles and electronics from companies that moved operations to China from Mexico in 2001 and 2002.

However, Villafane said, Mexico will not be in a political position to negotiate a trade pact succeeding NAFTA until the 2006 presidential election.

Echoing that was Mexico's Foreign Minister Ernesto Derbez, who has said that Mexico must improve its relations with China to make alliances and improve Mexico's competitiveness.

Since China joined the WTO in 2001, China not only has increased the volume of products it sells to Mexico, but it has displaced many Mexican products in the U.S. market.

Textiles are one example. After NAFTA was enacted in 1994, Mexico quickly became the No. 1 exporter of textiles to the United States. China, however, recently supplanted Mexico in the top spot, even though the United States remains the destination for 90 percent of Mexico's textile exports.

Mexico needs to find ways to take advantage of China's growing population and China's market potential as the world's largest population makes economic progress, Derbez said.

Whichever way NAFTA goes in its second decade, North America is a different, more diverse and larger trade bloc than it was before NAFTA.

David Hendricks is business columnist for the San Antonio Express-News.