Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau urged legislators to quickly approve a new continental trade pact but the main opposition party said it wanted to study the deal, indicating the ratification process could drag on.
Canada is the only one of the three signatories not to have formally blessed the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) deal and officials fret the process may well last until April. This could irritate U.S. President Donald Trump, for whom the pact was a major political victory in an U.S. election year.
Trudeau told Reuters his minority Liberal government would unveil legislation on Jan. 29 to ratify the USMCA, which will update the 25-year-old North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).
“We are going to make sure we move forward in the right way and that means ratifying this new NAFTA as quickly as possible,” Trudeau said while flanked by members of his cabinet following a three-day retreat in Winnipeg, Man.
(Reuters)
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