US and Canada fail to meet NAFTA deadline
WASHINGTON — Despite a furious few days of talks and intense pressure from President Donald Trump, U.S. and Canadian officials failed to meet a White House-imposed deadline of Friday to reach a deal on a revamped North American Free Trade Agreement.
Missing Trump’s cut-off date, in itself, does not imperil a renegotiated NAFTA, which also includes Mexico. Senior Canadian and U.S. negotiators plan to resume talks Wednesday to discuss Canada’s protected dairy market and other areas of dispute.
“The talks were constructive, and we made progress,” U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer said at the conclusion of Friday’s negotiations in Washington. Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland agreed that progress was made. She said a deal is still within reach, but insisted that Canada “will only sign a new agreement if it benefits Canada and Canadians.”
The longer the discord remains, however, the greater the risk that a trilateral accord will be pushed out much further into the future, or that Trump will scrap NAFTA altogether and go with a bilateral deal with Mexico, which he has threatened to do.
And Trump’s Twitter confirmation Friday that he had told Bloomberg News on Thursday that he would not compromise with Canada on trade did not help the prospects for a quick or easy settlement.
“If we don’t make a deal on Canada, that’s fine,” Trump said later Friday in Charlotte, N.C.
Earlier this week Trump heaped pressure on Canada by announcing that the U.S. and Mexico had come to terms on a revised NAFTA and that he would move ahead with a separate U.S.-Mexico agreement if Ottawa did not come on board by Friday. Moreover, Trump threatened to slap tariffs on Canadian autos.
As his deadline passed, Trump delivered a notice to Congress that he intended “to enter into a trade agreement with Mexico — and with Canada if it is willing” by the end of November.
Business groups and some members of Congress said they were encouraged that the U.S. was continuing to negotiate with Canada, but others criticized Trump’s notification to Congress as premature and called into question the president’s strong-arm approach to trade.