Talks between Canada and the United States to update the North American Free Trade Agreement soured sharply yesterday after President Donald Trump reportedly said a pact would be on US terms and Ottawa stood firm against signing “just any deal.”
US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland resumed the increasingly fraught talks yesterday, with Mexico on standby to return to discussions aimed at ending a year of hard-fought negotiations on the three-way North American Free Trade Agreement.
But Trump said in off-the-record remarks to Bloomberg News this week that any trade deal with Canada would be “totally on our terms,” the Toronto Star reported yesterday, citing remarks it had obtained.
Canadian stocks turned lower following the Toronto Star report, dropping to a two-week low, and the Canadian dollar weakened.
Global equities were also down following the hawkish turn in Trump’s comments on trade.
On the record, Trump told Bloomberg in the interview that a deal was “close” and that it could happen on Friday, the deadline he set to allow outgoing Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto to sign it before he leaves office at the end of November.
Under US law, Trump must wait 90 days before signing the pact.
But Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland said yesterday her team is “not there yet” in resolving still big differences. “We’re looking for a good deal, not just any deal. And we’ll only agree to a deal that is a good deal for Canada,” Freeland told reporters.
Lighthizer has refused to budge despite repeated efforts by Freeland to offer some dairy concessions to maintain the Chapter 19 independent trade dispute resolution mechanism in Nafta, The Globe and Mail reported yesterday.
However, a spokeswoman for USTR said Canada had made no concessions on agriculture, which includes dairy, but added that negotiations continued.