NAFTA still deadlocked

MEXICO CITY (CP) — Another round of NAFTA talks wrapped up with all key issues still deadlocked Tuesday as negotiators prepared to leave Mexico City with a plethora of question marks still lingering over the trade deal.

The negotiators made progress on a variety of technical files, nearly concluding some less-controversial chapters like digital trade, sanitary measures, telecommunications, customs enforcement, and telecommunications.

But on hot-button files like autos, dairy, dispute resolution, and a U.S. idea to make it easier to terminate NAFTA, they cite no real progress. Sources from the host country Mexico described a lingering standoff on multiple fronts, which Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland confirmed in Ottawa.

“There are some areas where more extreme (U.S.) proposals have been put forward. These are proposals we simply cannot agree to,” Freeland said.

“What we’ve done in some of these areas is ask for a better understanding of those proposals. We really feel a fact-based approach is the way to get a good result... (We’re asking): ‘Do you agree with our facts, or do you disagree with our facts?”’

That approach has frustrated some on the U.S. side.

An American familiar with the talks says the other countries would be better off making counter-proposals, rather than what they did at this round: showing up with presentations about how damaging the American proposals would be to the U.S. itself.

A front-page headline in Mexico’s Excelsior newspaper described the dynamic this way: “‘Mexico and Canada form a common front against the U.S.” Mexican sources vehemently rejected the idea of an organized Canada-U.S. tag-team.

They said, for instance, that there are no pre-session strategy huddles between Canada and Mexico, and said they simply have similar interests on a few important files:

“(But) gang up on the U.S.? No, no, no,” said one Mexican official.