U.S., Canadian officials work to forge trade deal
Sides try to wrap up a deal that could be signed before Dec. 1.
Talks to revamp the North American Free Trade Agreement have resumed as U.S. and Canadian negotiators push to strike a deal.
Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland arrived for talks with U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer in Washington on Wednesday after a series of back-to-back meetings last week failed to yield an agreement. The U.S. has said Canada is still welcome to join a preliminary pact it struck with Mexico to replace NAFTA, before the agreement is signed in late-November.
Lower-level American and Canadian negotiators “worked hard” over the weekend to bridge differences over trade, Freeland said as she entered the USTR offices for talks Wednesday morning. Canada is expecting further “constructive” discussions, she told reporters.
President Donald Trump said the U.S. could exclude Canada from a new trade deal and proceed with Mexico only, despite pushback from members of Congress and powerful business groups. Those constituents have also expressed concern that Trump will intensify a trade war with Beijing this week by announcing tariffs on $200 billion of Chinese goods.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, speaking Tuesday, singled out two issues as important for his country — maintaining some form of anti-dumping dispute panel and an exemption to protect cultural industries.
“We’ve been very clear that there are a number of things that we absolutely must see,” Trudeau said. “No NAFTA is better than a bad NAFTA deal for Canadians.”
Negotiators are trying to wrap up more than a year of talks and strike a deal that could be signed before Dec. 1.
The White House on Friday gave Congress a required 90-day notification that it would be signing a revised version of NAFTA with Mexico and would include Canada only “if it is willing.”
Under congressional rules for passing trade pacts, the administration must publicly release text of the agreement 60 days before any signing, meaning wrapping up the U.S.-Canada negotiations this month could put everything back on track.
But Trump seems unconcerned about the time frame. “There is no political necessity to keep Canada in the new NAFTA deal,” he wrote on Twitter over the weekend. “If we don’t make a fair deal for the U.S. after decades of abuse, Canada will be out. Congress should not interfere.”
The president’s comments came a day after Democrat Ron Wyden, ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee that oversees trade, criticized the administration for excluding Canada from its NAFTA deal.
“You can’t fix NAFTA without fixing issues with Canada,” Wyden in a separate statement Tuesday, adding that Congress has “authority over trade — the president cannot pull America out of NAFTA without Congress’s permission.”
Sticking points in NAFTA talk include America’s demand for access to Canada’s highly protected dairy sector, as well as the Trudeau administration’s push to preserve a dispute-resolution mechanism that the White House wants to dismantle. Canada also wants to maintain exemptions for its cultural sector, with Trudeau saying on Tuesday that the exemption “must stand” because, for instance, he wouldn’t want to see Canadian television networks swallowed up.
If neither side budges, it’s unclear whether Trump can withdraw from NAFTA without congressional approval, though the president has said he can do so unilaterally. Under terms of the original pact, any leader can pull their nation out after giving six months’ written notice.