free trade

Saturday August 18, 2018

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday August 18, 2018

Donald Trump suggests U.S. deliberately freezing out Canada in NAFTA talks

U.S. President Donald Trump is suggesting the United States has deliberately left Canada on the NAFTA sidelines as negotiations between Washington and Mexico have heated up in recent weeks.

July 27, 2018

During a televised cabinet meeting today, the U.S. president said his administration isn’t negotiating with Canada right now, before adding that its tariffs are too high and barriers too strong.

Officials from each country have insisted there’s nothing unusual about the one-on-one discussions on the three-country deal because it’s allowing the U.S. and Mexico sort tough bilateral issues, such as their differences on autos.

But some observers have argued Ottawa has been frozen out of the critical NAFTA negotiations and could eventually be forced into accepting a deal reached between its continental partners.

For four straight weeks, U.S. trade czar Robert Lighthizer and Mexican Economy Minister Ildefonso Guajardo have held bilateral NAFTA talks while Canada has been absent from the bargaining table.

During the cabinet meeting, Lighthizer told the room he’s hopeful for a NAFTA breakthrough with Mexico in the coming days – but Trump said he’s in no rush to make a deal unless it’s the right one. (Source: Global News) 

 

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Tuesday April 10, 2018

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday April 10, 2018

Three countries ‘fairly close’ on NAFTA, Trump says as Mexico touts ‘80 per cent’ chance of deal

U.S. President Donald Trump says the U.S., Canada and Mexico are “fairly close on NAFTA,” adding that they “have a chance to make a deal.”

March 7, 2018

Trump’s words before a cabinet meeting on Monday were his most optimistic to date on the probability of a successful renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement.

They corroborated the optimism earlier in the day from Mexican Economy Secretary Ildefonso Guajardo, who told a Mexican television station that there is “a very high probability, about 80 per cent,” of an agreement in principle by “the first week of May,” Reuters reported.

Guajardo, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland met in Washington last week for high-level negotiations that took the place of a full-scale negotiating round. Freeland said Friday that the talks were “intensive” and “constructive,” but she declined to offer her assessment of the chances for a deal.

January 24, 2018

It is not clear what exactly an “agreement in principle” would mean. Negotiations would be far from complete, even if such an agreement were announced. As of last month, the three countries had concluded only six of the planned 30-plus chapters of the agreement.

“The finish line is not even close on NAFTA,” Laura Dawson, director of the Canada Institute at Washington’s Wilson Center think tank, said last week.

The Trump administration appears to be in a rush because of the Mexican presidential election on July 1, in which the leading candidate is a left-wing NAFTA skeptic, and because of the U.S. congressional election in November, in which Democrats generally more skeptical of trade deals than Republicans could win back control of one or both chambers of Congress.

An agreement in principle, Dawson said, could “give all parties some political cover.” (Source: Toronto Star) 

Published in the Peterborough Examiner

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Thursday November 23, 2017

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday November 23, 2017

U.S. NAFTA auto proposal faces criticism from Canada and Mexico 

The United States negotiating team found itself squeezed at home and abroad during NAFTA talks on Monday, with various actors from Canada, Mexico and within the U.S. pressing it to reconsider demands called unworkable and unworthy of serious bargaining.

November 14, 2017

The Canadian and Mexican governments have refused to produce a counterproposal at the current round of talks on auto policy and are instead delivering a presentation on the self-inflicted damage they claim it would wreak upon America.

Their case was bolstered within the U.S. Senate.

A major auto association told a hearing that the current proposal could induce companies to leave this continent and simply pay import tariffs. This was on the same day that 18 U.S. senators sent a letter demanding the administration conduct an economic analysis before making any changes to NAFTA.

August 24, 2017

The U.S. stunned its partners by demanding that car companies quickly transform their supply chains to boost North American content; ensure half of a car’s parts come from the U.S.; use a new, stricter formula for calculating the origins of a car’s components; and do it all within a year.

“No vehicle produced today could meet such an onerous standard,” the Senate hearing was told by the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers.

“This proposal is unprecedented and would have significant ramifications on our industry and the U.S. economy, as a whole.”

The U.S. negotiating team is urging people to tone down the rhetoric.

August 17, 2017

It apparently views such proposals as a starting point. An American source familiar with the talks pointed to evidence of the U.S. willingness to negotiate in good faith: the very broadly phrased list of American objectives published online last week.

In a few cases, that list includes specific numbers — like the demand that Canada relax its duties on online purchases by $780. In the case of automobiles, though, there are no numbers — just a reference to a desire for U.S. content in cars.

June 29, 2016

The source said this is normal in negotiating. But what’s less normal, the source said, is the public rhetoric by the Canadian side, with talk of red-lines and non-starters that will make it harder to advance negotiations.

The Canadians adopted a deliberate strategy at this round of proposing nothing on the hardest issues.

Instead, they will deliver a presentation and demand details. Along with Mexico, Canada will press the American side for clarity on how the auto proposal would work, with the subtext of that conversation being their belief that the proposal would not, in fact, work at all. (Source: Toronto Star) 

 

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Tuesday July 17, 2017

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday July 17, 2017

Trump administration poised to reveal goals for NAFTA talks

United States Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer is expected to release today his negotiating objectives ahead of talks to revise the North American Free Trade Agreement next month.

April 20, 2017

The goals for the renegotiation, as well as the Trump administration’s rationale for how these objectives will lead to an agreement beneficial to the U.S., must be published on the USTR website, as required by Congress in accordance with the trade promotion authority granted to the White House for renegotiating a standing agreement like this.

Formal talks to revise NAFTA are expected to start next month. Such objectives must be published 30 days in advance.

The Canadian government is not required to publish its negotiating objectives ahead of the formal talks, expected to start on or shortly after Aug. 17. The location for these talks has not been finalized yet.

While Canada has been consulting formally and informally — an official consultation period expires Tuesday — politicians, officials and negotiators have been talking to affected industries for weeks to prepare Canada’s bargaining positions.

June 2, 2017

They’re expected to continue to do so throughout the process, although Parliament does not require the kind of transparency Congress does.

“The other NAFTA parties — Canada and Mexico … their position has been: the U.S. wanted to re-open this and modernize it. We’re just coming along,” International trade lawyer Dan Ujczo told CBC News last week. “So I think in some ways the U.S. is going to set the agenda.”

“If it comes out really short and sweet with a very narrow set of lists, that’s indicating that they want to get this done as quick as possible,” he said. But if it isn’t a deep dive, Ujczo expects Congress to demand more specifics. (Source: CBC News) 

 

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Thursday April 20, 2017

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday April 20, 2017

Canadian envoy fires back at Trump over dairy claims

Canada’s envoy to Washington has shot back at criticism by President Donald Trump and U.S. milk producers, saying the facts don’t support a charge that the Canadian dairy industry is to blame for the woes of some American farmers.

January 26, 2017

“Canada does not accept the contention that Canada’s dairy policies are the cause of financial loss for dairy farmers in the United States,” Ambassador David MacNaughton said in a letter to the governors of Wisconsin and New York that was released Tuesday night in rebuttal to Trump’s surprise criticism of Canada earlier in the day.

“The facts do not bear this out.”

The U.S. president’s surprise decision to call out Canada by name Tuesday put dairy farmers north of the border on notice that they are in America’s fair-trade sights.

Trump launched his broadside after a brewing trade spat that has seen the U.S. dairy lobby accuse Canada of “systemic disregard” of its trade obligations, while the Canadian industry accused its American rival of “scapegoating.”

October 10, 2015

Trump also signalled he wants to do more than simply tweak the North American Free Trade Agreement, saying he is looking for “very big changes” to the trilateral pact that includes Mexico, or else he will scrap it once and for all.

Trump levelled the threats — some of his strongest-ever anti-Canadian rhetoric — during an event at a Wisconsin factory where he unveiled his “Buy American-Hire American” executive order.

After what has been a relatively warm beginning in relations with Canada, which included what was seen by many as a positive trip to Washington by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Trump dropped the gloves on Canada’s well-guarded dairy sector.

He appeared to be taking dead aim at the Canadian industry and its supply-management system during an appearance in Wisconsin, a state he took from the Democrats with his “America First” anti-trade message.

It is also a state that is feeling the effects of Canada’s decision to impose import taxes on ultra-filtered milk, a protein liquid concentrate used to make cheese. It had been duty-free but Canada changed course after its milk producers complained. (Source: CBC News)

The Telegram, St. John’s, Nfld., April 25, 2017