Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said he felt “positive” about talks to rework the NAFTA trade pact, while a top Mexican official held out hope a deal could be hammered out by the end of May.
According to Reuters, U.S. officials say the talks need to wrap up very soon to give the current Congress time to vote on a final text for a revamped North American Free Trade Agreement.
“We’ve worked with them (the Americans) on a whole bunch of issues, including this morning in Washington where we have some of our top folks continuing the conversations,” Trudeau told the Economic Club of New York. “To be honest, we are down to a point where there is a good deal on the table.
“It’s right down to the last conversations… I’m feeling positive about this, but it won’t be done until it’s done and people are working very, very hard on it right now,” he added.
Mexico’s Economy Minister Ildefonso Guajardo said a deal could be reached by the end of May, but added that if no agreement is reached the talks could extend beyond the July 1 Mexican presidential election.
“If the conditions are defined by next week, nothing stands in the way of closing a deal by the end of May,” Guajardo told Reuters.
He added that his technical negotiating team is in Washington but there is no date set for the next NAFTA ministerial meeting with the United States and Canada.
U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan had said that the Republican-controlled Congress would need to be notified of a new deal by today to give lawmakers a chance to approve it before a newly elected Congress takes over in January.
Ryan was asked at a regular weekly press briefing whether there was any wiggle room in the NAFTA approval timeline for Congress.
“The wiggle room would be at the ITC (U.S. International Trade Commission),” Ryan told Reuters. “The question is, can the ITC constrict their time that they would take to process and that’s where the wiggle room would be.
Under the Trade Promotion Authority statute, U.S. President Donald Trump must notify Congress 90 days before he can sign the agreement. The ITC has up to 105 days after the signing to produce a study on the effects of the agreement.
(Reuters)
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