Canada and Mexico laud Nafta progress

washington — Canada and Mexico on Friday said good progress had been made in talks with the United States to modernise the North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta) and that ministers would meet again on Tuesday as they push to wrap up a deal.

Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland and Mexican Economy Minister Ildefonso Guajardo struck a positive note after a second day of meetings with US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer to revamp the 24-year-old accord, which underpins some $1.2 trillion in annual trilateral trade.

“We are certainly in a more intense period of the negotiations and we are making good progress,” Freeland told reporters, saying that officials would stay in Washington over the weekend as the eightmonth-old talks continue.

Guajardo, who has often sought to temper optimism for a quick deal, said the ministers would meet again on Tuesday. “There was a lot of progress made today,” he said.

The three ministers are pressing for a quick deal to avoid clashing with a July 1 presidential election in Mexico, which would mean overcoming major differences on several US demands.

Canada and Mexico have battled

We are certainly in a more intense period of the negotiations and we are making good progress Chrystia Freeland, Canadian Foreign Minister

for months with a US push for tougher Nafta rules on how much North American content vehicles must contain to avoid tariffs, known as rules of origin.

“We continue to work very hard on rules of origin, really the heart of this agreement,” Freeland said.

US negotiators had initially demanded that North Americanbuilt vehicles contain content that is 85 per cent made in the Nafta countries, based on value, up from 62.5 per cent at present.

However, auto industry executives said last week that Washington had softened that demand in an effort to move faster toward a deal.

A source familiar with the talks said Canada and Mexico found the US concessions “really helpful,” especially a move to back away from proposals that would have made tracking the origin of parts overly complex. “We have makings of a deal right now. We could accept where they (the Americans) are at,” said the source, who requested anonymity given the sensitivity of the situation. — Reuters