由於世界貿易組織（ WTO ）的杜哈回合（ Doha Round ） 陷入嚴重危機，越來越多的國家決定訴諸自由貿易協定 (FTAs) 來推動貿易政策自由化與確保重要的國際市場。迄 2007 年底已有超過 300 的區域貿易協定（ RTA ）已通報日內瓦的 WTO 秘書處。儘管 RTA ＼ FTA 如此受歡迎，但是 FTA 卻為推展多邊主義與日益增加的國際關係法治化的外交政策帶來相當大的負面衝擊，尤其是權力與不對稱的問題。超過 75% 的 RTA 以及幾乎 90% 目前正在談判中的貿易協定皆為雙邊 FTA 。 而且，成長最快速的模式是已開發國家與發展中國家所簽訂的 FTA 。這意味著在此正在激增中的貿易談判大環境下，小型經濟體正面對要與比自身強大很多，甚至可能是高度不對稱依賴的貿易伙伴進行談判的情況越來越多。極少數學者（事實上全是加拿大人）明確地考慮到優惠貿易協定（ PTAs ）談判中的不對稱的問題。 文主旨即試圖從加拿大與美國 不對稱談判 的經驗來探討國際談判，藉研究加拿大在北美自由貿易協定（ NAFTA ）談判的角色來剖析 不對稱性對決策制訂者的關連性。首先將檢視有關談判與不對稱的文獻以定義國際談判裡的權力，其次點出加拿大在北美自由貿易協定談判的整體目的。而第三節與第四節是剖析農業談判，並從理論上看談判。最後一節則闡述 NAFTA 的結果對加拿大北半球貿易策略衝擊。

With the Doha Round of the WTO in a serious crisis, more and more countries have decided to turn towards free trade agreements (FTAs) as means to liberalize trade policy and to guarantee access to important markets. By late 2007, more than 300 such accords, “regional trade agreements” in GATT parlance, had been notified to the multilateral trade regime's Geneva secretariat. Yet in spite of their popularity, FTAs tend to bring a problem back into foreign policy that the expansion of multilateralism and the increasing legalization of international relations had reduced to a much more limited role: the question of power and asymmetry. Over 75 percent of regional trade agreements and almost 90 percent currently under negotiation are bilateral agreements. Moreover, the fastest-growing type of agreement is the developed-developing country FTA (Crawford and Fiorentino 2005). This means that in a significant and increasing number of negotiations, small economies are facing much larger partners on which they may be highly asymmetrically dependent. Yet surprisingly, very few authors (and in fact, all Canadians) have explicitly considered asymmetries in the negotiation of PTAs (Cameron and Tomlin 2000; DeBoer-Ashworth and Winham 2000; Robert 2000; Mace et al. 2003). Drawing on Canada 's experience with asymmetrical negotiations with the US , this paper presents several findings from studies investigating international negotiations and illustrates their relevance for policymakers with a case study of Canada 's role in the NAFTA negotiations. Besides the obvious relevance of the experience of having negotiated with the United States , one of the most important actual or future FTA partner for many countries, the Canadian case allows us to ignore problems that may plague other countries. Canada did not have to deal with issues such as administrative overstretch through many possibly concurrent FTA negotiations, or the potential effects and feedback between multiple FTAs. The case therefore allows us to focus exclusively on what defines asymmetrical negotiating situations and how policymakers can deal with them. he paper proceeds as follows. The next section presents key theoretical insights from the literature on negotiations and asymmetry in order to define “power” in international bargaining. Section 2 provides an overview of Canada 's overall objectives in the NAFTA talks. Section 3 analyzes the bargaining on agriculture. Section 4 analyzes the negotiations theoretically. Section 5 casts the light on the consequences of NAFTA on Canadian trade strategy in the hemisphere, and concludes with an overview of current negotiations in the multitude of initiatives taken on during the last years.