The Free Trade Agreement (FTA; French: Accord de libre-échange, ALE) was a trade agreement reached by negotiators for Canada and the United States on October 4, 1987 and signed by the leaders of both countries on January 2, 1988. The agreement phased out a wide range of trade restrictions in stages over a ten-year period, and resulted in a great increase in cross-border trade. With the addition of Mexico in 1994 FTA was superseded by the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) (French: Accord de libre-échange Nord Américain (ALENA), Spanish: Tratado de Libre Comercio de América del Norte (TLCAN)).