The reinvigorated debate on imperialism in the last two decades focuses on the means by which Euro-American capital is currently spread around the globe and the different ways it pillages the wealth of the developing countries. The Economic Partnership Agreements being foisted on the Africa, Caribbean and Pacific countries by the European Union, however, has been under the radar of the debate on imperialism. This book draws on the experiences of the Caribbean Forum-EU EPA to fill that void by bringing into focus the economic partnership agreement as a conduit of European imperialism. Dennis C. Canterbury, Ph.D. (2000) in Sociology, Binghamton University (State University of New York), is Associate Professor of Sociology at Eastern Connecticut State University. He has published extensively on development issues including "Neoliberal Democratization and New Authoritarianism" (Ashgate 2005).

On 1 July 2000 regulations to liberalize trade flows between Mexico and the European Union came into force, after more than six years of diplomatic work and complex negotiations. These regulations are part of the "Tratado de Libre Comercio (TLCUEM), which is also one of the components of the Agreement on Economic Association, Political Concertation and Cooperation ("Global Agreement"). The Global Agreement through its three components - political dialogue, trade liberalization and cooperation- was at the time the most ambitious agreement ever constituted by the EU. The economic association component included in the Global Agreement - the TLCUEM- was the first overseas free trade treaty and served as an important precedent for later EU negotiations with other Latin American countries. The purpose of this essay is to analyze the reasons that led Mexico and the EU to the constitution of this treaty; to describe the main challenges of the Global Agreement negotiations of different components; and to briefly review the results of the first three years since the TLCUEM enforcement.