As the border that divides Canada and the US has continued to "thicken" with greater security measures since the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, scholars Steven Globerman and Paul Storer of Western Washington University have compiled a comprehensive study of how these changes have come to affect the integration of the North American economy. Using time series data on transportation costs, Globerman and Storer have studied various customs districts to analyze what factors have contributed to changes in cost.

On May 28, 2010, Mexican President Felipe Calderon finished his second visit in ten days to his country's NAFTA partners. The trip included speeches before both nation's legislatures as well as meetings with President Obama and Prime Minister Harper.

In the latest edition of the Estey Centre Journal of International Law and Trade Policy (Volume 11, Number 1), Greg Anderson from the Political Science Department at the University of Alberta and the Alberta Institute for American Studies discusses the limitations of North American integration since 1994. According to Anderson, North American integration and in particular, the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP), have largely been shaped by the "three noes": no money, no disputes, and no legislation.

In the recent edition of the Estey Journal, Marc D. Froese's article, Trade Friction, Dispute Settlement and Structural Adjustment, Or, Why Canada-Wheat Doesn't Matter in North American Trade Relations, discusses state trading enterprises (STEs) and the World Trade Organization's (WTO) attempt to regulate their behaviour.