Despite intensive negotiations all last week, a deal on a revised North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) won’t be announced at a summit in Lima, Peru this week as U.S. President Donald Trump had wanted.
Talks to rework NAFTA are not advanced enough for the United States, Mexico and Canada to announce a deal “in principle” at this month’s Summit of the Americas in Lima, according to media reports over the weekend.
The politicians responsible for NAFTA met on Friday in Washington, and said progress had been made on reworking the accord. But there continues to be much to do before an agreement can be officially announced. President Trump, his Mexican counterpart Enrique Pena Nieto and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau are due to attend the Lima gathering, and officials had hoped for substantive progress on the renegotiation before the meeting.
If negotiations continue advancing, a deal might be possible by the end of April or early May, reported news articles during this past weekend. Negotiations to rework NAFTA began last year after President Trump took office promising to take the United States out of the 1994 agreement if it could not be reworked to better serve American interests.
With the Trump administration embarking on a tariff conflict with China, officials say Washington is now in a hurry to reach a deal over NAFTA before the current Congress ends. The United States holds mid-term congressional elections in November.
NAFTA talks continue this week in Washington.
