Source: POLITICO'S MORNING AGRICULTURE, 4/27/18

The U.S., Mexico and Canada could soon have a successfully renegotiated NAFTA, Mexican Foreign Minister Luis Videgaray signaled on Thursday night. At the conclusion of a trilateral meeting between the NAFTA nations' top trade leaders, Videgaray said a NAFTA 2.0 deal is "certainly possible" in the coming days. Negotiators have been meeting consistently in Washington, D.C., over the last month, as the pressure has built for them to produce a breakthrough agreement by early May, which would likely give the Trump administration just enough time to get it through Congress this year. 

"We're working on it. But we're more concerned with having a good agreement than a quick agreement," Videgaray said. "I think we are reasonably close."

'Progress' was the buzzword: Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland was also optimistic on Thursday night, emphasizing that there has been "good progress this week." Mexican Economy Minister Ildefonso Guajardo, who has led Mexico's efforts since the renegotiation launched in August 2017, offered a more muted take on where things stand. 

"There is always progress. The point is if it's enough progress to be really in the point you want to be - at the point where you can say, 'Well, we finished,'" he said. "We are still in the process and we'll keep on moving in the right direction."

One-track mind: Ministerial-level meetings in recent weeks have almost exclusively focused on rules governing auto manufacturing in the region, an issue that Freeland has said is "at the heart of the negotiation" for all three countries.

Timeline remains unclear: Ministers will meet again this morning. However, Freeland and Guajardo would not confirm whether talks will continue over the weekend, saying they are taking things day by day.