Analysts once again play down Trump threat to scrap NAFTA

WASHINGTON — U.S. President Donald Trump is again suggesting that NAFTA be terminated, this time saying that both Canada and Mexico are being “very difficult,” but observers didn’t take the threat too seriously Sunday.

While the president has threatened to end the trade agreement before, this is the first time Trump has complained about Canada’s role in the talks.

Canada, the U.S. and Mexico began formal negotiations earlier this month to rework the 23-yearold trade deal.

Sui Sui, an economics professor at Ryerson University’s Ted Rogers School of Management, said she doesn’t take Trump’s comments too seriously, because these kind of talks “should be hard.”

“This is a pretty normal trade negotiation: each party fights (for) the best interests of their own country,” she said.

“The Canadian government is just doing their job, same as the Mexican government.”

Trade economist Dan Trefler, professor at the University of Toronto and senior research fellow at the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research, agrees that Trump’s Twitter rhetoric is unlikely to translate to action. For one thing, the president is unlikely to receive the congressional approval he would need to act on a major trade agreement. “Congress has been more involved in these trade negotiations than it’s ever been involved in any previous trade negotiation,” Trefler says.