Canada threatens to ‘walk away’ from bad NAFTA deal
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has threatened to “walk away” from the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) if he cannot secure the right deal for his country and talks with Washington on modernizing the pact fail.
“The negotiations are complex and challenging ... I’ve said many times, we are not going to take any old deal,” Trudeau said on Friday. “Canada is willing to walk away from NAFTA if the United States proposes a bad deal.”
“We will not be pushed around. At the same time we can remain confident about NAFTA,” the Canadian prime minister said, warning that it would be “extremely harmful and disruptive” to both the United States and Canada if Washington withdrew from the deal.
NAFTA is a trade treaty among the US, Canada and Mexico, dating back to 1994.
Incumbent US President Donald Trump has called NAFTA the “single worst trade deal ever approved” by the US and claimed that it has led to the outsourcing of thousands of jobs from the US to Mexico and China.
The three parties to NAFTA agreed in July last year to hold seven rounds of talks to renegotiate the deal; however, little progress has been made on key issues. The penultimate round of the NAFTA negotiations was held in the Canadian city of Montreal between January 23 and 28.
The seventh round of NAFTA talks is scheduled to take place in Mexico City on February 26.
“We are going to keep negotiating in good faith,” Trudeau said. “We are confident we are going to be able to get to the right deal for Canada, not just any deal.”
The Canadian premier also expressed doubt about Trump pulling the US out of the trilateral deal despite slow progress at the talks.
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