US trade deal struck with Canada on deadline

Canada is back in a revamped North American free trade deal with the United States and Mexico after weeks of bitter, highpressure negotiations that brushed up against a midnight deadline.

In a joint statement, US trade representative Robert Lighthizer and Canadian foreign affairs minister Chrystia Freeland said the agreement “will strengthen the middle class and create good, well-paying jobs and new opportunities for the nearly half billion people who call North America home”.

The new deal, reached just before a midnight deadline imposed by the US, will be called the United States-mexico-canada Agreement or USMCA. It replaces the 24-yearold North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which US poresident Donald Trump had called a job-killing disaster.

Mr Trump yesterday lauded the agreement as a “great deal”.

The agreement gives US farmers greater access to the Canadian dairy market.