President Donald Trump’s promise to renegotiate NAFTA suffered a major setback Tuesday as Canada and Mexico aligned to block some of the most controversial USA proposals and the top U.S. trade negotiator accused its partner nations of being obstructionist and unwilling to negotiate. “As hard as this has been, we have seen no indication that our partners are willing to make any changes that will result in a rebalancing and a reduction in these huge trade deficits”.
If all parties become entrenched in their positions, Trump has vowed to withdraw from the 23-year-old agreement altogether.
The extension signals the potential demise of a trade pact that, while critical to North American commerce, has come under withering criticism from the Trump administration as a bad deal for U.S. workers.
The peso has long moved in conjunction with uncertainties over United States trade policy, which you can see in the chart shared by Glossop below.
“We’ve also seen a series of unconventional proposals in critical areas of the negotiations that make our work much more challenging”, Freeland told a joint press conference in Washington.
Noting that she was at a bipartisan dinner Tuesday evening at the home of Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, Heitkamp said she emphasized to Trump administration officials that Mexico and Canada are two of the biggest markets for USA food products.
“Countries are reluctant to give up unfair advantage”, said Lighthizer.
Canada is now the country in the best bilateral position, as both Mexico and the United States have expressed interest in continuing trade agreements with the country.
Nafta negotiators are working on a side deal for the U.S., Canada and Mexico to make a non-binding pledge to avoid devaluing their currencies for competitive purposes, according to three people familiar with the matter. Former U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman urged that the U.S. proposals be considered opening offers, saying “it’s a negotiation”.
“This is troubling.” Freeland was also critical of ongoing US calls for national content rules, which she said would harm the already well-established, interconnected supply chains of North America’s shippers. US grain and meat producers have also said they fear that the produce seasonality proposal could endanger USA exports to Mexico, and the United Fresh Produce Association has said it does not support the seasonality proposal even though its Florida members and some others want the situation addressed.
“Simply put, we can not afford for the United States to abandon free trade”, Hun Quach, the group’s head of trade policy, said in an emailed statement.
The Mexican peso was under pressure earlier this week after the Trump administration came out swinging for the fourth round of NAFTA re-negotiations. “Our farmers and ranchers need access to foreign markets to export their goods – otherwise, rural economies suffer and good American jobs are lost”, she said. “Ministers have reaffirmed their mandate to chief negotiators to reach an agreement in a reasonable period of time”.