Mexico and Canada Say Nafta Talks With U.S. Should Be Trilateral
MEXICO CITY—Mexican and Canadian officials said Tuesday that negotiations to update the North American Free Trade Agreement with the U.S. should be trilateral as a matter of common sense, and that replacing it with bilateral pacts would be impractical.
“Nafta is a trilateral agreement, and that has worked because it’s a trilateral North American trading relationship,” Canada´s Minister for Foreign Affairs Chrystia Freeland said at an event in Mexico City. “Nafta can be modernized only with the agreement of the three parties…and I am confident that that will be how we go.”
The view was echoed by Mexican Foreign Minister Luis Videgaray, who said three bilateral agreements between the three countries would be impractical and a lost opportunity.
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U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross has said that the reworking of Nafta could be as the existing trilateral pact or a series of bilateral agreements with symmetrical provisions. Trump has kept open the possibility of abandoning Nafta if the U.S. doesn’t secure a satisfactory deal. The Trump administration notified Congress earlier this month of its intention to renegotiate the 23-year-old trade pact, and formal talks are expected to begin by mid or late August.
U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer has said the U.S. hopes to maintain the existing structure of the agreement, although there are no guarantees, and that many parts of the negotiation will be conducted bilaterally.
Ms. Freeland acknowledged that some issues within the region are bilateral by nature, such as U.S. disputes with Canada over lumber and with Mexico over sugar.
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https://www.wsj.com/articles/mexico-and-canada-say-nafta-talks-with-u-s-should-be-trilateral-1495569004
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We are caught in a pincer attack by our trading partners to the north and south because your boss is a complete and total asshole idiot. What you believe to be bilateral agreements over sugar and lumber are nothing less than our trading partners coming to their senses and working together to exert pressure over tRump through a treaty he called irrelevant. It seems we have no choice but to capitulate if our country wants to retain Mexico and Canada as trading partners. Mexico is tired of being cast as our poor cousins to the south, and Canada is tired of being regarded as too polite to play hardball politics.
