Officials hail ‘significant progress’ in NAFTA talks

‘Really highly productive’ round in Ottawa

OTTAWA • Only one chapter, on small- and medium-sized businesses, has been finalized after a third round of NAFTA talks. But the tone from Canada’s partners is remarkably rosy.

Leaders showered each other, and hundreds of negotiators, in thanks at the conclusion of what was roundly declared a productive — “really highly productive,” as Mexican Economy Minister Ildefonso Guajardo put it — step in the renegotiation.

At Ottawa’s foreign affairs headquarters Wednesday, there were no particularly fiery words from U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, who on previous occasions has offered a dire interpretation of work needed on the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland was all smiles and appeared to have inspired some Canadian-style friendliness in her counterparts. Standing in between the two, she looked on encouragingly as each made their statement and lit up when Lighthizer mentioned Ottawa as a place with a rich history of trade.

A separate dispute with the U.S. had sucked up most of the political oxygen Wednesday, however.

The day previous, the American commerce department hit Canadian aerospace producer Bombardier with a 220-per-cent countervailing duty on C-series aircraft after a complaint from U.S. behemoth Boeing.

This could colour talks about an area of NAFTA under dispute — the Chapter 19 provisions that allow complaints about such duties to go to binational tribunals rather than national courts.

The chapter, which Americans want to eliminate but Canadians and Mexicans want to keep, is one of the “contentious” issues Lighthizer mentioned will still take a lot of work.

“I shared with him the absolute importance of this issue to Canada,” Freeland said, noting she has also spoken to Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross about the issue and continues to liaise with her British counterpart, who is intent on helping Bombardier succeed because it is a major employer in Northern Ireland.

“We’re going to continue to fight really, really hard,” she said, noting “aggressive” decisions from commerce are nothing new.

Parties are now working on consolidated text for most of the trade agreement, which means things have progressed enough that the texts from each party are not wildly different. But the Americans haven’t yet offered any specifics on dispute settlement for countervailing and anti-dumping duties.

“In those potentially more difficult areas the U.S. has not tabled text,” Freeland told reporters Wednesday afternoon. But she said she doesn’t feel there is any “slowness of pace,” generally speaking.

“I’m not wearing sleeves but metaphorically we said we’d roll up our sleeves and that’s what we’ve done,” she said before again thanking negotiators for their hard work. She acknowledged the open protectionism of the U.S. administration under President Donald Trump and said the only thing Canada can do is keep working.

In addition to finalizing a section on small- and medium-sized enterprises, “significant progress,” as Lighthizer put it, was made in areas including digital trade, competition, phytosanitary regulations, customs and telecommunications.

The competition chapter is expected to be concluded at the next round of talks in Washington, D.C., two weeks from now.

Freeland added that “really, really quick progress” is also being made on a variety of regulatory measures hoped to make trade more efficient. “Initial offers” have come in on government procurement access, says a trilateral joint statement.

Progressive elements brought forward by Canada, including new environment and labour chapters and one on gender, are being discussed, and although it was not on a formal agenda obtained by the Post, a draft Indigenous chapter was also put on the table, Freeland said.