The U.S. government is reportedly pushing for a preliminary NAFTA deal to announce at a summit in Peru next week, and will host Canadian cabinet ministers in Washington, D.C. this week to try to achieve a breakthrough on the trade pact.
According to reports, the White House wants leaders from Canada and Mexico to join in unveiling the broad outlines of an updated NAFTA deal at the Summit of the Americas meeting scheduled to take place on April 13, while technical talks to hammer out the finer details and legal text could continue after the summit.
However, reaching agreement on a new trilateral trade deal by next week could prove difficult as the U.S., Canada and Mexico remain divided on a number of issues, including on a U.S. proposal for more North American content in automobiles.
America’s eagerness to strike a deal on its biggest trade pact comes as U.S. stocks tumbled, falling in seven of their last 10 trading sessions over concerns that President Donald Trump’s protectionism could spark a global trade war. The White House in the past month has imposed tariffs on steel and aluminum imports, and announced plans to slap duties on Chinese goods over alleged intellectual-property violations.
NAFTA negotiators are working under considerable pressure with elections in Mexico this July and the U.S. in November threatening to complicate the process of reaching a deal and getting it approved by those nations’ lawmakers. Negotiators from Mexico and Canada had been expecting an eighth round of NAFTA talks to start in Washington next week, though U.S. negotiators have pushed back against the idea and haven’t yet sent an official invitation to either country.
