Wednesday, November 22, 2017

NAFTA at a Mexican standoff

Trade talks in Mexico ended this week with a standoff among negotiators for the United States, Canada and Mexico.

Canadian Trade Minister Christia Freeland said she will not agree to the U.S. demands to change the disputes-settling system and for five-year reviews.

Mexico is equally adamant on those issues and joins Canada in resisting U.S. auto-industry demands.

US. trade representative Robert Lighthizer remains stubborn and issued the following statement:

While we have made progress on some of our efforts to modernize NAFTA, I remain concerned about the lack of headway. Thus far, we have seen no evidence that Canada or Mexico are willing to seriously engage on provisions that will lead to a rebalanced agreement. Absent rebalancing, we will not reach a satisfactory result.

A rebalanced, updated NAFTA will promote greater prosperity for American workers, farmers, ranchers and businesses and strengthen the North American region as a whole. 

"Our teams will be meeting again next month in Washington. I hope our partners will come to the table in a serious way so we can see meaningful progress before the end of the year.”