In the past, free trade agreements and other trade agreements committed for the most part only their signatories. They had no direct effects on other levels of government. However, this clear line between levels of government ceased prevailing with the implementation of the Free Trade Agreement between Canada and the United States on January 1, 1989. Indeed, for the first time a trade agreement expressly stipulated that its clauses applied equally to the States and the provinces. The question thus emerged as to how and in what ways the Free Trade Agreement and, subsequently, NAFTA (1994) have modified relations and interrelations between central governments and infra-State governments. This article will discuss these questions from an overarching perspective encompassing the three Americas. There are three parts to the analysis. In the first part, the authors present a few basic data about the countries and the infra-State governments. Secondly, they examine the relevant clauses of the Free Trade Agreement and NAFTA. This is followed by a discussion of provincial or State governments as political actors. This approach enables them to cast light on some new aspects of the democracy of executives that appears to be predominating in the implementation of normative frameworks specific to the current state of economic globalization.