Obviously, there's tension between this sort of supranational regulation and my "universal brotherhood" paragraph above. Raising Latin American labor costs, while helping some Latin Americans, hurts some of the poorest ones by pricing them out of the labor market. Still, a center-left NAFTA is a reasonable compromise among competing liberal objectives. Besides, even globalization's biggest fans (e.g., me) are starting to admit that its pace is sometimes jarring, economically and culturally, for rich and poor nations alike. And if slowing it is your aim, it's much better to tap the brakes supranationally than nationally. Supranational brake-tapping is less conducive to trade wars and other nasty dust-ups than unilateral protectionism is.