NAFTA talks to resume after U.S. trade trip to China

A push for a tentative NAFTA deal in coming days has come up short despite progress on key issues, with ministers not meeting again until after a U.S. trade trip to China.

U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer met again Friday in Washington with Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland and Mexican Economy Minister Ildefonso Guajardo. After the meeting, Guajardo and Freeland stressed that gains had been made and that more parts of a revised North American Free Trade Agreement are now almost done.

Guajardo said the three ministers meet next on May 7, once Lighthizer is back from China, and that technical talks with lower-level officials will continue until then. Freeland said there won’t be a deal before the next ministerial meeting.

That means NAFTA talks won’t be complete before Tuesday, which had been a target for officials given the China trip and the expiration date of a temporary exemption for Canada and Mexico from U.S. metals tariffs. The Americans had linked exclusion from its levies on steel and aluminum imports to successful completion of a NAFTA deal.

Both Guajardo and Freeland downplayed the risk of being hit with metals tariffs, declining to give any indication of what assurances the Trump administration has given them. Mexico, for its part, hinted that it could retaliate.

“Ambassador Lighthizer knows very clearly our position and how we have to react if any measure is imposed on Mexico,” Guajardo told reporters Friday in Washington. The North American steel sector is “strong,” and “it will not be in the best interest of any country to be treated as the rest of the world,” he said.