Source: Chris Scott, MEATINGPLACE, 4/24/18


Progress on reaching a new version of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) is moving forward so well that negotiators could have a preliminary agreement in the next two weeks, according to several media reports.

Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland told reporters last week that negotiators are “in a more intense period” and are making “good progress” on specifically troublesome aspects like auto rules of origin and settlement mechanisms, according to reports in Politico and Reuters. Freeland, Mexican Economy Minister Ildefonso Guajardo and U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer spent the weekend in Washington, D.C., and are scheduled to meet again Tuesday to eventually reach what Freeland called “a great win-win deal.” 

Lighthizer has said he hopes to have an agreement in principle approved before Congress recesses on Dec. 13, although Guajardo is stressing that Mexico’s legislative schedule calls for approval of a final NAFTA package before its current session ends Aug. 31.

The optimism on the part of the negotiators echoed statements last week by Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue, who told a farmers association in Tennessee that “we do want NAFTA” and that farmers “will not be the only soldiers in the (trade) battle,” according to the Delta Farm Press.

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