Trump says he’ll delay new NAFTA
Midterms come first, president declares
BERKELEY HEIGHTS, N.J. — President Donald Trump intends to delay signing a revised version of the North American Free Trade Agreement until after the fall midterm elections, a move aimed at reaching a better dealwith Canada and Mexico.
Mr. Trump said in an interview that aired Sunday that he could quickly sign an agreement with the United States’ neighbors, “but I’m not happy with it. I want to make it more fair.” Asked about the timing of an agreement, Mr. Trump said: “I want to wait until after the election.”
The president’s decision to push back the NAFTA talks comes as the U.S. and Canada have been engaged in a tit-for-tat trade dispute over Mr. Trump’s tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum. Canada announced billions of dollars in retaliatory tariffs against the U.S. on Friday, and the president signaled the trade rattling could continue.
In the interview on Fox News Channel’s “Sunday Morning Futures with Maria Bartiromo,” Mr. Trump again threatened to impose tariffs on
imported cars, trucks and auto parts, saying, “The cars are the big ones.” The move has been viewed as a possible negotiating ploy to restart NAFTA talks, which could resume following Sunday’s elections in Mexico to select a new president, who willplay a key role in shaping any final NAFTA deal. Frontrunner Andrés Manuel López Obrador is known for his populist policies.
If the U.S. moved forward with tariffs on auto imports, it would be a blow to Canada’s economy because of the critical nature that the auto industry plays in the country. The U.S. Commerce Department is expected to hold hearings on auto tariffs in late July and to complete its investigation into auto importslater this summer.
Mr. Trump has sought to renegotiate NAFTA to encourage manufacturers to invest more in America and shift production from lowwage Mexico to the United States. The talks have stalled overseveral issues, including Mr. Trump’s insistence on a clause that would end NAFTA every five years unless all three countries agree to sustain it.
The president has suggested he may pursue separate trade pacts with Canada and Mexico instead of continuing with a three-country deal. But any reworked deal would need to be considered by Congress, and negotiators missed a self-imposed deadline to wrap up the talks by mid-May to allow it to be considered by lawmakers before theNovember elections.
As part of his combative America First approach, Mr. Trump has repeatedly attacked the trade policies of the United States’ northern neighbor, trying to pressure Canada and also Mexico into agreeing to rewrite the 24year-old NAFTA to shift more auto production and investment to the United States. But that effort has stalled.
In addition, Mr. Trump has cited Canada’s triple-digit tariffs on dairy products, which account for only about 0.1 percentof U.S.-Canada trade.
Mr. Trump and Mr. Trudeau spoke by phone late Friday after Canada announced it would impose its own tariffs in retaliation for the U.S. tariffs on steel and aluminum imports. Mr. Trudeau’s office said the prime minister “conveyed that Canada has had no choice but to announce reciprocal countermeasures” to the U.S. tariffs.
Mr. Trump had enraged Canada and other U.S. allies by declaring imported steel and aluminum a threat to America’s national security and therefore a legitimate target for U.S. tariffs. Canada is the United States’ secondbiggest trading partner in goods,just behind China.
On Sunday, Ottawa began imposing its retaliatory tariffs on $12.6 billion in U.S. goods. Some U.S. products, mostly steel and iron, face 25 percent tariffs, the same penalty the United States slapped on imported steel at the end ofMay.