NAFTA talks continue with little to show for the effort. The North American Trade Agreement, between Canada, the United States and Mexico, is twenty-four years old and is being renewed and renegotiated in Washington.
But U.S. President, Donald Trump announced on August 27, that the U.S. had reached an agreement with Mexico and that he was prepared to proceed with a bilateral agreement if Canada was not willing to accept American demands.
“We’re in a mutual stare-down situation”
Trump said he would be changing the name of the agreement as well.
NAFTA: U.S. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said today any new NAFTA deal should be a trilateral deal with Mexico, Canada and the U.S. because anything else would not be ‘in the interest of this hemisphere.’ (Jose Luis Magana/AP)
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has said repeatedly, that “No deal is better than a bad deal for Canada”.
Chrystia Freeland, Canada’s Foreign Affairs Minister and leader of our trade delegation, says “negotiations continue”, they are “cordial” and “moving along”.
Derek Burney was instrumental in the final round of negotiations of the original Free Trade Agreement between Canada and the United States in 1989. He was then an ambassador to the United States.
In an interview on CBC’s News Network he continued his adamant support for the Canadian team to remain firm in their demands.
He says there’s not much evidence of what the Americans are giving, He said “you have to accept an agreement that you can sell domestically”.
And he went on to suggest that if the name of the agreement was to be changed, NAFTA might be better known as “SHAFT ‘YA”.
Deadlines have come and gone in the process that began over a year ago, but now it appears December 1, 2018 is the ultimate deadline.
That date allows outgoing Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto to take the credit and the photo ops, and the incoming president Andrés Manuel López Obrador does not want to be associated.
In order to comply, October 1, 2018 would be the necessary date for a draft agreement for a December 1, fanfare.
(With files from CBC and AP)
