Washington: US and Mexican officials said they are aiming to conclude talks to remake the North American Free Trade Agreement as soon as next month. The news follows Wednesday’s ceasefire in trade hostilities between the United States and the European Union, raising the possibility President Donald Trump could declare victory in two fronts of his global trade offensive. The US, Mexico and Canada could reach “some kind of conclusion during the course of August,” US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer told a Senate subcommittee on Thursday.
He said “that’s not an unreasonable timeframe if everybody wants to get it done,” adding that it would allow Mexico’s President Enrique Pena Nieto to sign the new deal before he leaves office on December 1. “That’s what our hope is,” Lighthizer said.
Mexico’s Economy Minister Ildefonso Guajardo, in Washington for meetings with Lighthizer, told reporters the sides were getting close, and had a “window of opportunity” to reach a deal by the end of August.
He said “that is the expectation we all have” and are committed to, although after the meeting he cautioned: “I cannot predict the end result.”
Jesus Seade, adviser to Mexican President-elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who takes office on December 1, said the meeting was “excellent,” and he was “cautiously optimistic” on reaching a deal. Talks were due to continue later.
But Lighthizer suggested he still favoured a so-called sunset clause in US trade agreements, requiring parties to renew them every five years.
US insistence on the sunset provision helped derail the Nafta talks earlier this year after both Canadian and Mexican officials rejected it outright. “I think we clearly should have a sunset review,” he said.
In a possible dig at Ottawa, Lighthizer also said Mexican authorities had been more cooperative than the Canadians. “My hope is that we will before long have a conclusion with respect to Mexico and as a result of that Canada will come in and begin to compromise,” he said. “I don’t believe they’ve compromised in the same way the United States or Mexico has.”
Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland met on Wednesday with her Mexican counterpart Luis Videgaray said there had been “significant progress” towards revamping the two-decade-old trilateral agreement.
Talks were first launched last year after Trump demanded an overhaul of the “terrible deal,” and he has threatened to pull out and then negotiate separate bilateral deals, most recently in a letter to Lopez Obrador. — AFP
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