International USMCA: Congress Ratified New & Improved Trade Deal To Replace NAFTA

Arkain2K

Arkain2K

Si vis pacem, para bellum
@Steel
Joined
Dec 6, 2010
Messages
33,423
Reaction score
5,684




Thread Index:
----

Canada, Mexico ready to talk about NAFTA with the U.S
By Michel Comte AFP
November 10, 2016

4734819533de283ef9c885f535403aa436eddce2.jpg

Canada and Mexico agreed Thursday to US President-elect Donald Trump's demand to have a fresh look at their tripartite 22-year-old free trade pact, fearing they could be shut out of the US market.

But the two US allies diverged on the level of changes to the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) each was willing to accept, with Mexico taking a harder line.

The 1994 trade pact became a source of friction with America's neighbors during the campaign when Trump called NAFTA the worst trade deal the United States has ever signed.

The Republican president-elect's protectionist notions to repatriate American jobs lost to free trade sent shockwaves through Canada and Mexico's economies, which both rely heavily on exports to the United States.

"I think it's important that we be open to talking about trade deals," Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau -- a fierce defender of free trade -- said Thursday.

"If the Americans want to talk about NAFTA, I'm more than happy to talk about it," he said.

967102b2ec60bb6e47867ff798f88e5316fb6b3f.jpg

Mexico's Foreign Minister Claudia Ruiz Massieu, meanwhile, said her government was willing to seek to "modernize" NAFTA with Trump's incoming administration and Canada, but not ready to start from scratch.

"We are willing to talk about this with the new government and with Canada as well," Ruiz Massieu told CNN.

"We think it is an opportunity to think if we should modernize it -- not renegotiate it, but to modernize it," she insisted.

Ruiz Massieu said NAFTA would be discussed with Trump's transition team in the coming months.

Trump has also agreed to meet with Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto, possibly before the New York billionaire's inauguration in January.

Trudeau has meanwhile pledged to work closely with the new US leader.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/mexico-says-ready-modernize-nafta-trump-181527988.html
 
Last edited:

Britain could join USA, Canada and Mexico in new free trade area after Brexit
By Christopher Hope
NOVEMBER 11, 2016
uk-usa-canada-mexico-xxlarge_trans++qVzuuqpFlyLIwiB6NTmJwfSVWeZ_vEN7c6bHu2jJnT8.png
​

Britain could become an “associate” member of the North American Free Trade Area after it leaves the European Union, it has emerged.

The plan was first proposed nearly 20 years ago by US senator Newt Gingrich, who is now tipped to be President-elect Donald Trump’s secretary of state.

Conservative MPs are backing the idea as a way of ensuring that Britain makes the most of opportunities after it leaves the EU, which is currently likely to be March 2019.

Nafta looks set to be reformed or scrapped after Mr Trump repeatedly attacked it during the US presidential campaign.

This week Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said he was willing to renegotiate Nafta once Mr Trump becomes president in the new year.

Mr Gingrich, when he was Speaker of the House of Representatives, raised the idea in April 1998 and it was backed by Margaret Thatcher and Right-wing Eurosceptics in Britain, but condemned by the Labour government.

Its supporters argue that a new Nafta including the UK is possible once Britain has freed itself from its obligations to the EU.

The new arrangement – perhaps reviving the name of the old North Atlantic Free Trade Area – would exploit the close trading ties between Britain and the USA.

The two countries have similar policies towards the free market, and more open to trade, reliant on markets and tougher on cronyism.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/201...usa-canada-and-mexico-in-new-free-trade-area/
 
Last edited:
Canada opposition scorns PM move to negotiate trade with Trump
Nov 16, 2016
r

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was attacked from both sides on Wednesday for telling U.S. President-elect Donald Trump that Canada is open to renegotiating the NAFTA trade agreement, with opposition parties mocking Trudeau for being naive and panicked.

Trudeau, whose Liberals have a parliamentary majority, said last week that "if Americans want to talk about NAFTA, I'm more than happy to talk about it," a day after Canada's ambassador to the United States said Ottawa would be "happy" to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement.

During his campaign, Trump repeatedly railed against NAFTA as a U.S. job killer, and promised that if elected, he would scrap it unless he could negotiate much better terms for the United States.

Canada opposition leaders, including the right-of-center Conservatives and left-leaning New Democrats, derided Trudeau for being so eager to renegotiate the 22-year-old deal between Canada, Mexico and the United States.

"Why is the prime minister in a rush to open up NAFTA when there (are) so many jobs on the line?" interim Conservative leader Rona Ambrose asked in parliament.

Third-party New Democrat leader Tom Mulcair said Trudeau's willingness to renegotiate a trade deal he never before criticized may have been a panicked reaction to the unexpected election of Trump.

"What's his plan? What's his negotiating position? He hasn't been able to explain anything so far, other than the fact that in his very first conversation with Donald Trump, he said, well, let's renegotiate NAFTA," Mulcair told reporters.

The New Democrat leader said it has never been more important to have a prime minister who can stand up to America, given what is "going to be a very strong headwind coming from the American side."

Industry groups have geared up to fight potential hits to Canada's beef and softwood lumber sectors if the new Republican administration targets changes to trade.

Canadian cattle producers will urge Ottawa to retaliate against the United States if the incoming Trump administration imposes a meat label ling program it views as discriminatory, restarting a six-year trade battle, an industry group said on Wednesday.

Trudeau is on a six-day trip to Cuba, Argentina and Peru, but Innovation Minister Navdeep Bains said Canada would work with Trump and the U.S. Congress in the interest of Canadians.

"That is why we are engaged with the new administration, we're going to work with Congress, we are going to make sure we advance Canada's national interest when it comes to trade, investment, when it comes to jobs," Bains told parliament.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-canada-trump-nafta-idUSKBN13B2QT
 
Last edited:
NAFTA in dire need of revamp, says original negotiator
By Alexander PanettaThe Canadian Press
Nov. 17, 2016​

kantorjpg.jpg.size.custom.crop.1086x698.jpg

WASHINGTON—NAFTA is out of date and needs to be brought into the 21st century, says one of the trade agreement’s original negotiators and most ardent champions, adding his voice to the explosion of commentary following the election of Donald Trump.

Mickey Kantor was the negotiator brought in by Bill Clinton to finalize the deal in 1993, when the then-rookie president promised to add side agreements on labour and the environment and appointed Kantor as his first U.S. trade czar.

He remains a huge booster of the pact — he says it has promoted economic growth in all three signatory countries, in addition to encouraging more harmonious relations between neighbours.

But don’t count him among all the people hand-wringing about changes to NAFTA. He says it and other agreements he reached in the 1990s were tailored to an economy that no longer exists, and require modernization.

“There was no Internet. There was no cloud. There was no problem with data transfer. We had a whole different world,” Kantor told a symposium organized this week by the libertarian Cato Institute.

“No agreement — certain none I ever negotiated — is perfect. They all need to be updated.”

Kantor said he’d advise a Trump administration to make that among its top priorities. Trump indeed has promised to renegotiate or scrap the treaty, which has caused some anxiety among U.S. neighbours who send the overwhelming majority of their exports to the U.S.

Both Canada and Mexico have responded to the election result by saying they’d be willing to sit down for a discussion, prompting more debate about whether they’ve weakened their negotiating position with Trump.

Another trade veteran at the symposium wholeheartedly agreed with Kantor. Like Kantor, Susan Schwab was a U.S. trade representative, albeit with a Republican administration under George W. Bush.

“NAFTA is an ancient trade agreement. It’s hopelessly out of date. That’s not to say it’s a bad agreement,” Schwab said. She saluted the Canadian government’s approach: “I thought that was a very, very clever response.”

A third former U.S. trade representative, Robert Zoellick, has suggested inviting the United Kingdom into NAFTA — especially as that country seeks new trade relationships in light of its vote to leave the European Union.

There are pros and cons to talk of reopening NAFTA, said Canadian trade lawyer Mark Warner.

A more modern trade deal could indeed produce better standards for labour, the environment, state-owned enterprises, fighting corruption and resolving disputes, as adjusted in more recent agreements, Warner said.

It would also allow Canada to revisit the energy rule that forces it to sell a certain amount of oil to the U.S., potentially limiting its options with market diversification. In addition, he said Canada could seek more beneficial rules on government procurement and worker mobility.

Frustration with current mobility rules has been repeatedly voiced by Canadian officials. They would love to add new, digital-economy jobs to the list of professions eligible for easy-access visas under NAFTA — an out-of-date index almost completely devoid of references to computers.

One official said in a recent interview that multinational companies are now bedevilled by red tape when sending employees to do work in a branch across the border. “They can’t cross the border without getting hassled.”

But there’s also an obvious downside risk to opening this discussion, said Warner: the fear of opening up a Pandora’s box of complications.

“The risk of opening NAFTA for negotiations is that the update can’t get limited to minor tweaks but spreads to traditional bilateral Canada-U.S. irritants like supply management (of dairy), softwood lumber, country of origin labelling for beef,” he said.

“If NAFTA talks failed, and President Trump terminated NAFTA, Canada might be able to rely on the 1988 Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement but that would also likely need to be updated also and many of the same sticky issues would arise.”
Click to expand...

https://www.thestar.com/business/20...-need-of-revamp-says-original-negotiator.html
 
Canada, Mexico leaders to discuss NAFTA strategy this weekend
Nov 17, 2016

r


The leaders of Mexico and Canada will hold talks this weekend on the potential impact that a Donald Trump presidency could have on the NAFTA trade pact, a source close to the matter said on Thursday.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto will meet on the sidelines of an Asian regional summit in Lima, Peru, and intend to speak to each other more frequently about their NAFTA strategy in the months to come, said the source, who declined to be identified given the sensitivity of the issue.

Trump, who takes office in January, says he will either tear up or push to renegotiate the trilateral North American Free Trade Agreement, under which Canada and Mexico both send the vast majority of their exports to the United States.

"The two men will run through a number of scenarios in Lima and talk about how to address them," said the source.

"They will hold more frequent talks on NAFTA in the coming months as the president-elect's plans become clearer."

Trump is working with close aides to decide who should get key jobs. His key transition officials do not yet have access to detailed briefing documents on national security and economic policy.

The source said it was too soon to say what, if any, common front Canada and Mexico would take to defend NAFTA, given neither country had any idea what Trump's intentions were.

Canadian officials say that if Trump walks away from NAFTA, Canada could fall back on an earlier 1984 free trade deal with the United States.

There are no such options for Mexico, which Trump has also singled out over what he says is the problem of illegal immigration. Trump made building a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border a central issue of his campaign.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-canada-mexico-nafta-idUSKBN13C2ML
 
Last edited:
I've been waiting for Britain to try and edge in on something like this.
 
ehtheist said:
I've been waiting for Britain to try and edge in on something like this.
Click to expand...

Unfortunately, they gonna be watching on the sideline. My prediction is that the British parliament would STILL be busy fighting each other over Article 50 when NAFTA renegotiation begins.

MixMartialFarts said:
Trudeau is a goof.
Hey Justin wheres my legal weed?
Click to expand...

If you have nothing to add in regards to NAFTA, GTFO.
 
Arkain2K said:
Unfortunately, they gonna be watching on the sideline. My prediction is that the British parliament would STILL be busy fighting each other over Article 50 when NAFTA renegotiation begins
.
Click to expand...
Most likely. There is a lot of political currency to be had for the guys that fights it hard if/when it happens, if things turn sour in some way which, being honest, they probably will, the people that tried to stop it and lost all of the sudden become the heroes. Easy gamble to make for a politician when even a slight negative turn in circumstance will tilt the balance in favor of the anti-Brexit crowd.
 
Whatever terms they end up with. The main focus should be making the region stronger.
 
I like the idea of Britain getting in on it. They should grow closer to the US than Europe, as we share more in common. The Anglo world needs to stick together; this is a good step in the right direction.
 
Donald Trump Poised to Pressure Mexico on Trade
While an abrupt withdrawal from Nafta trade deal is unlikely, the president-elect and his advisers are gunning for big changes
By William Mauldin and David Luhnow
Nov. 21, 2016

BN-QW821_TRUMPT_GR_20161121104235.jpg

Donald Trump, right, with Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto in Mexico City in August, during the U.S. presidential campaign​

Rather than kill Nafta, Donald Trump and his advisers appear set to push for substantial changes to the treaty governing U.S. trade with Mexico and Canada, an effort that could prove difficult to negotiate and perilous to the regional economy.

The president-elect vilified the North American Free Trade Agreement during the campaign and threatened to pull the U.S. out of the trade deal—but only if Mexico doesn’t agree to substantial modifications.

The U.S. trade deficit with Mexico rose 9.5% in 2015 to $60.7 billion, while the deficit with Canada fell 57% to $15.5 billion.

Mr. Trump hasn’t released a blueprint for his new vision of Nafta, but his comments and those of his advisers suggest they want big changes. Among the likeliest would be special tariffs or other barriers to reduce the U.S. trade deficit with Mexico and new taxes that would hit U.S. firms that moved production there, according to Trump advisers. His team says it may also seek to remove a Nafta provision that allows Mexican and Canadian companies to challenge U.S. regulations outside the court system.

In a video released late Monday sketching some steps he’d take in the first 100 days, Mr. Trump hit on his trade intentions prominently but didn’t mention Nafta. Instead, he said he would issue an executive action on the first day notifying 11 other countries that the U.S. was pulling out of the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership, a sweeping trade deal completed in 2015 but not yet ratified by Congress.

Soon after he takes office, Mr. Trump is set to ask government officials to examine the ramifications of abandoning Nafta, according to a transition-team memo, CNN reported.

If Mr. Trump wins concessions from Mexico, Canada likely would seek comparable advantages with Mexico. Any talks with Canada, which had a trade agreement with the U.S. that predates Nafta, would likely bring up thorny issues that have long dogged relations, including softwood lumber imports from British Columbia, Canada’s support for its dairy farmers and the labeling of beef in the U.S. produced from cattle born or raised in Canada.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said after the election that he and his administration are ready to discuss making changes to Nafta aimed at improving labor rights and wages on the continent.

The U.S. imported and exported $1.1 trillion in merchandise to and from Canada and Mexico last year, compared with about $700 billion with the European Union and $600 billion with China.

The U.S., Canada and Mexico are intertwined in a complex system of supply chains, with some components crossing borders more than once before final products are sold to consumers.

Breaking up Nafta would upend numerous industries, and deal a blow to Mexico, which promotes itself as offering global manufacturers duty-free access to the U.S.

Mexican officials say they are willing to update the 22-year-old treaty, including adding new chapters on e-commerce and other aspects that didn’t exist in the mid-1990s.

But Mexican officials are wary of revisiting tariffs and export quotas. “We can’t get lost in an old debate about traditional tariffs…that’s a debate from the last century,” Economy Minister Ildefonso Guajardo told a business conference earlier this month. Reopening the treaty would create “a long line” of special interests in all three countries trying to get protection, he said.

Jaime Serra, Mexico’s trade minister when Nafta was negotiated, said steps like agreeing to voluntarily restrict exports should be off the table. Export quotas, he said, would be “the beginning of pure protectionism, and it would be shooting both of our countries in the foot.”

Concluded in the George H.W. Bush administration and enacted with amendments under former President Bill Clinton, Nafta eliminated tariffs among the North American countries over time and set rules for investment, labor and the environment.

Mr. Trump repeatedly called for across-the-board, double-digit tariffs on imports from Mexico to reduce the trade deficit, which he linked to the loss of manufacturing jobs. While Congress has given presidents the ability to levy big emergency tariffs, they could eventually be challenged at the World Trade Organization.

Mr. Trump’s warnings could be the opening bid in negotiations that end with relatively low tariffs or other barriers to Mexican goods.

Some Democrats and labor groups also have embraced blunt measures to reduce the trade deficit. The House Democrats who led the opposition to President Barack Obama’s Pacific trade agreement said they’re willing to work with Mr. Trump on a more balanced trade policy.

Rep. Brad Sherman (D., Calif.) suggested negotiating within the framework of Nafta the option for Washington to impose special tariffs of up to 4% on Mexican goods to reduce the bilateral trade deficit to $25 billion, excluding oil and agricultural goods. “Good neighbors have balanced trade relationships,” he said.

Besides traditional trade barriers, enforcement cases and tariffs, Mr. Trump and his advisers have discussed special taxes that could be levied on goods produced by U.S. companies that have moved production off shore.

Among various tax plans, one supported by House Republicans would raise money from goods imported into the U.S., in a similar fashion to the value-added tax that affects U.S. products sold abroad. The “destination-based cash-flow tax” could be challenged at the WTO, but Mr. Trump’s advisers say they will use Washington’s leverage at the Geneva-based trade body to change the treatment of VAT and other border-adjusted taxes.

Some experts following Mr. Trump’s trade plans say he is likely to negotiate removing some Nafta provisions that have grown unpopular, such as an international arbitration system that known as investor-state dispute settlement. This arbitration process, codified in Nafta’s chapter 11, allows investors from one country to sue the government of another to obtain compensation outside the traditional court system when they claim their rights are violated or their property is seized.

If Mr. Trump doesn’t get what he wants in the talks, as president he has the authority to pull the U.S. out of Nafta in a matter of months and could do so, perhaps warning about such a move in his first days in office, lawyers say. If the U.S. leaves Nafta, then the two-decade-old agreement could be replaced with bilateral trade agreements, which Trump advisers say they prefer to multilateral tie-ups.
Click to expand...

http://www.wsj.com/articles/donald-trump-poised-to-put-pressure-on-nafta-1479746005
 
Last edited:
Arkain2K said:
Donald Trump Poised to Pressure Mexico on Trade
While an abrupt withdrawal from Nafta trade deal is unlikely, the president-elect and his advisers are gunning for big changes
By William Mauldin and David Luhnow
Nov. 21, 2016

BN-QW821_TRUMPT_GR_20161121104235.jpg

Donald Trump, right, with Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto in Mexico City in August, during the U.S. presidential campaign​



http://www.wsj.com/articles/donald-trump-poised-to-put-pressure-on-nafta-1479746005
Click to expand...

I wonder why all those criticizing Mexico and China ignore the 150 billion deficit with the EU.
 
Can we get taco time to further reduce taco tuesdays? I mean really, their food is revolting enough, and if ever you had to use the bathroom after me you'd agree.
 
I'm really liking some of the ideas being floated in these articles, it's good to see some of the Dems on board with Trump.
 
How can NAFTA be renegotiated in a way that will be a net plus for the US?
 
Rod1 said:
I wonder why all those criticizing Mexico and China ignore the 150 billion deficit with the EU.
Click to expand...

It evens out the espionage and middle east fk up we have to deal with.
 
Rex Kwon Do said:
I like the idea of Britain getting in on it. They should grow closer to the US than Europe, as we share more in common. The Anglo world needs to stick together; this is a good step in the right direction.
Click to expand...

But it's possible that they may bring us down with their bitch ways.

We don't need to strike deals with more libs.
 
I think NAFTA changing wont be a huge deal, what will really affect Canada is USA producing and using more of their own oil. When Canada's tar sands go down all of Alberta suffers. Mexico benefits a lot from NAFTA because they continue to get a lot of manufacturing jobs and the USA companies get that cheap labour. I know Canada exports a lot of resources to the USA and Imports goods from the USA. They were Canada's number one trade partner.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Latest posts

Forum statistics

Threads
1,236,885
Messages
55,452,332
Members
174,783
Latest member
notnormal

Share this page

Back
Top