 Mexico's economy was further integrated with that of US and Canada after 1994, when the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) began lowering trade barriers.Seven decades of PRI rule ended in the year 2000 with the election of Vicente Fox of the conservative Partido Acción Nacional (PAN).His successor, conservative Felipe Calderón, also of the PAN, embarked on a war against drug mafias in Mexico that is still continuing, resulting in tens of thousands of deaths.