President Donald Trump says this week that the North American Free Trade Agreement talks are “moving along nicely.”
Bloomberg says trade ministers from Mexico, Canada, and the U.S. are meeting in Washington, D.C., and pushing to finish an agreement by early May.
During a meeting with the president of France, Trump said, “NAFTA, as you know, is moving along. I could make a deal very quickly but I’m not sure that’s in the best interest of the United States. We’ll see what happens but we’re doing very well.”
The trade head of the Mexican version of the Chamber of Commerce says an agreement on an updated NAFTA could be reached within the next ten days.
If no deal is reached in the coming days, the Bloomberg report says it may make sense to put further negotiations on hold until the end of this year, or even early 2019. That’s because of the Mexican presidential election in July and the American midterm election in November.
Negotiating teams have agreed on nine or ten more topic areas that are ready for the ministers to review. However, there are still some sticky issues left to deal with.
From the National Association of Farm Broadcasting News Service.