Time running out on renegotiated NAFTA deal

CURRENT TALKS CRUCIAL TO REACHING AGREEMENT

The three NAFTA countries are in Washington meeting to determine whether an interim agreement is possible within the coming weeks, before political deadlines render a deal impossible this year.

Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland met her U.S. and Mexican peers on Friday, one day after she arrived in the American capital and dined with her counterparts.

Sources say Friday’s meetings are key if there is to be a renegotiated NAFTA this spring, before Mexico elects a new president, the U.S. elects a new Congress and procedural rules make a ratification vote in Congress impossible this year.

What remains unclear is what form an imminent deal might take.

One trade insider says two realistic possibilities for a quick agreement have been under discussion: one is to seriously scale back the scope of the talks and the other is to present something highly preliminary this spring and keep negotiating the details after July’s Mexican election.

That’s because the idea of a full overhaul of a new NAFTA that is thorough, and ambitious, and quickly completed, is a fantasy, said trade consultant Eric Miller of the Rideau Potomac Strategy Group.

“An agreement-in-principle is anything you want it to be,” he said.

“(But) a deal on a fully renegotiated NAFTA by the end of May, as the Trump administration would like, simply will not happen. There just isn’t enough time.”

It’s unclear the countries have even discussed, in any detailed way, major sticking points like dairy — which is a perennial top irritant in Canada-U.S. trade talks and would need to be resolved to have a thorough deal.

Autos have been the central issue so far, given the Trump administration’s overarching goal of pulling manufacturing jobs back from Asia and Mexico.

The U.S. has agreed to modify its most controversial auto proposal to date.

Its new proposal would grant credits to parts-makers that pay wages beyond $15 an hour.