NAFTA talks make ‘good progress’, but await key U.S. proposals
Negotiators tight-lipped as Freeland says decisions on trickier issues to occur later
OTTAWA Canada’s foreign minister says she’s still waiting for key proposals from the Americans on an update to NAFTA, but the “bread and butter” of the deal is moving ahead in talks this week.
On an accelerated timetable, “we’ve been making some good progress,” but “we haven’t yet received proposals from the United States on some of these more contentious issues” including rules of origin for auto manufacturers, Chrystia Freeland said Monday.
A few hundred North American Free Trade Agreement negotiators descended on Ottawa on Saturday for the third five-day grind in a renegotiation of the deal.
A record-breaking heat wave welcomed officials from the United States and Mexico. But negotiators have been tight-lipped.
(There is so little in the way of media availability that foreign reporters were invited to take an informal tour of Ottawa on Sunday, concurrent to negotiations.)
What we do know is what ministers have publicly asked for — with an update from politicians scheduled for Wednesday — and what’s on the docket for this week’s meetings.
The rooms in the capital’s Old City Hall are named after provinces and territories. Officials with expertise in specific areas cycle in and out of the rooms depending on the topics of discussion set out in a detailed schedule obtained by the National Post.
(New Brunswick is the lone province without a negotiating room named after it. And the Yukon gets one, but Nunavut and the Northwest Territories don’t.) Some rooms feature discussions where countries are likely to agree. Take the Manitoba room, which was seized with digital trade all weekend. Although rules need to be ironed out, this is an area this is not covered in the current agreement but unlikely to cause issues. A session on anti-corruption in the Newfoundland room Saturday would likely also have proven uncontroversial.
Canada’s priorities feature heavily in the meetings, but there are some omissions. Freeland had proposed, 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 anti-dumping and countervailing duties. Canada and Mexico want the mechanism to stay.
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.”
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 on Tuesday evening. Bilateral and trilateral talks, as well as a press conference, are scheduled for Wednesday.
Looming over negotiations is the possibility President Donald Trump intends to make good on threats to pull out of the talks.
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.