Trump vows to ‘terminate’ NAFTA if talks fail

STRUTHERS, United States, July 26, (AFP): US President Donald Trump vowed Tuesday to rip up a free trade deal with Canada and Mexico if the text is not renegotiated to his liking.

“We are renegotiating NAFTA and if we don’t get the deal we want, we’ll terminate NAFTA,” Trump told a group of veterans in Ohio, the center of America’s industrial heartland.

“NAFTA has been a disaster for Youngstown, it’s been a disaster for Ohio.”

Trump made scrapping NAFTA a pillar of his presidential campaign, but has since softened his stance slightly.

Earlier this month, his administration began the process of renegotiating the 23-year-old deal, which Trump says is not fair to American workers.

The former businessman has made reforming America’s economy a centerpiece of his brand.

His timing has been auspicious, entering office after the recovery from the Great Recession was well entrenched and with the labor market approaching full employment.

“Jobs are the best they have been in 17 years, the stock market hit another all time high today, we’re doing trade deals,” he said, marking that progress.

“People are coming back, if you look at Ohio, if you look at Michigan and other places the auto industry is starting to come back in a very, very big way.”

US and Mexican political deadlines are creating pressure to reach a quick outcome to next month’s talks to rework North America’s regional free trade pact, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said Tuesday.

The United States, Canada and Mexico are due to begin talks on August 16 to rework the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), with the US side focused squarely on cutting its $56 billion trade deficit with Mexico.

“It’s probably a big mistake to set a particular date but the political calendars both here and there suggest it should get done pretty quickly,” Ross told the Economic Club of Washington, DC.