It’s official. Canada, Mexico and the United States have entered into a new North American free trade agreement.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, U.S. President Donald Trump and Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto signed the new continental trade pact in Argentina Friday morning during a G20 meeting.
Called the "United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA)," the elected governments of all three nations now must ratify the deal, which took over a year to negotiate. In Canada and Mexico, that ratification process is expected to be pretty straightforward. In the U.S. — where the recent midterm elections delivered the House of Representatives to the Democratic Party — ratification could prove more challenging.
Trump sold the renegotiation of NAFTA to his base of supporters as a huge improvement over the previous deal. Pena Nieto, who is leaving office at the end of December, sold the deal to his people as a victory for Mexico, saving free trade from a U.S. president who wanted to kill it.
Trudeau sounded a somewhat sour note in the days leading up the signing of the agreement, saying that there were still some difficulties in the text and hinting that he was reluctant to have a celebratory signing ceremony and photo-op.
Canada and the U.S. continue to wrestle with a number of trade irritants, notably the U.S. tariffs imposed on Canadian steel and aluminum. Trudeau said Friday that the U.S. tariffs will remain in place for the time being.
