Few proposals on ‘contentious’ issues so far

NAFTA TALKS

for example, new chapters in the agreement focused on gender and Indigenous rights. Although gender was being discussed in the Quebec room Saturday, nowhere on the schedule is a mention of Indigenous issues.

Three days of talks on environment, another Liberal government priority, were scheduled around the Saskatchewan table, followed by two days on labour issues. Neither area is expected to be concluded this week.

U.S. Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross worried in a Washington Post op-ed Friday that rules-of-origin requirements, as written now, require too small a percentage of manufactured products to have been produced in the U.S.

Ross argued provisions under the deal were written in to restrict content from countries outside the trade zone, but have done the opposite.

Canada’s chief negotiator told reporters on the way into talks Saturday he doesn’t expect any “radically new” text from the Americans on that front, but rules of origin are up for discussion in the Nova Scotia room Tuesday and Wednesday.

Dispute settlement mechanisms are on the agenda Wednesday in the Manitoba room. A U.S. priority is to eliminate Chapter 19, which sets out bi-national panels to resolve challenges on antidumping and countervailing duties. Canada and Mexico want the mechanism to stay.

One day of discussion isn’t likely to resolve this issue, however. Decisions on trickier elements of NAFTA won’t happen until later, Freeland explained, and that’s normal for a trade negotiation. Besides, she said, those decisions can’t happen until “actual proposals are on the table.”

Freeland is hosting a working dinner with U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Mexican Economy Minister Ildefonso Guajardo Tuesday evening. Bilateral and trilateral talks, as well as a press conference, are scheduled for Wednesday.

There will be an elephant in the room. Looming over negotiations is the possibility President Donald Trump intends to make good on threats to simply pull out of the negotiations, which his administration initiated, if the outcome isn’t a clear win for the U.S.

Negotiating rounds are rotating between countries every two weeks or so and a tentative deadline has been set for the end of the year, before a Mexican election in 2018 and U.S. congressional midterms later that year.