Canada reported to reach 11th-hour NAFTA deal

OTTAWA — Sources tell The Canadian Press an 11th-hour NAFTA deal has been reached that allows Canada to rejoin the trilateral trade pact.

Insiders got wind of a breakthrough after 14 months of tumultuous talks and just hours before U.S. and Mexican trade authorities were set to publish their own trade agreement without Canada.

Federal cabinet ministers were summoned to a late Sunday meeting at the prime minister's office near Parliament Hill Sunday, and the White House called its own late-night trade briefing.

Meantime, congratulations were being offered among key stakeholders who have been on the edge of their seats to see if Canada and the United States would find common ground.

An agreement on how to treat the auto sector, reached this summer between the United States and Mexico, was central to a revamped NAFTA going ahead.

But the U.S. and Canada had trouble dealing with other areas in the pact, including Canada's dairy industry, its insistence on a strong dispute settlement mechanism and concerns about intellectual property and culture.

Earlier in the evening sources tol The Canadian Press that apprehension was giving way to measured but mounting confidence Sunday that the fall finale to Canada’s long-running NAFTA drama may finally be at hand — with the famous unpredictability of the man in the White House giving all involved cause for caution.

Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland and Ambassador to the U.S. David MacNaughton were in Ottawa taking part in an aggressive, long-distance push to get Canada into a trilateral free-trade deal with the U.S. and Mexico on the eve of a key congressional deadline.

Central to the discussions on Sunday was an effort to secure some sort of assurances that will allow Canada to avoid the dreaded Section 232 tariffs on steel, aluminum and auto exports, which U.S. President Donald Trump has either threatened or already imposed on national security grounds.