Contentious US proposals to hit Nafta overhaul

Contentious new US demands are set to hit Nafta negotiating tables on Wednesday, threatening to push modernisation talks toward collapse as Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau again tries to remind US President Donald Trump of the trade pact’s merits.

Mr Trudeau will meet with Mr Trump and trade-focused US lawmakers on the North American Free Trade Agreement while hundreds of negotiators, government officials and lobbyists from Canada, Mexico and the United States descend on a hotel in Arlington, Virginia for a fourth round of talks.

The Canadian leader’s visit comes amid increasing acrimony over Nafta renegotiations, with Mr Trump making fresh threats to terminate the 23-year-old agreement and the US Chamber of Commerce on Tuesday accusing Mr Trump’s administration of trying to sabotage the talks with “poison pill proposals.”

Mexican foreign minister Luis Videgaray warned that an end to Nafta would mark a breaking point in USMexican relations and affect bilateral cooperation in non-trade areas.

The Nafta talks are likely to stall in the face of aggressive US demands to sharply increase content requirements for autos and auto parts, trade experts say.

The US round promises to be difficult, with Mexicans saying the talks are expected to be extended by two days to October 17. People briefed on the US proposals said that the North American content threshold for automotive would rise to 85 per cent from the current 62.5 per cent, with a 50 per cent US-specific content requirement. New York Times on Tuesday.

The Russian intrusion detected more than two years ago used anti-virus software manufactured by the Russian firm Kaspersky Lab as an ad hoc global search tool, the Times said, quoting current and former government officials.

The software is used by 400 million people around the world, including by officials at some two dozen American government agencies, the Times reported.

Israeli intelligence had hacked into the Kaspersky network and upon detecting the Russian intrusion, alerted the United States.

This led to a decision last month for Kaspersky software to be removed from US government computers, the Times said.