Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland met US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer again on NAFTA overnight. After the meeting, Freeland said the talks had been constructive, without giving any details. She said earlier that while Canada is a “country that is good at finding compromises”, the team was also there to “defend the national interest”.
Back at home in Ottawa, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau urged more flexibility from the US side in making a deal. He said, “we’re interested in what could be a good deal for Canada but we’re going to need to see a certain amount of movement in order to get there and that’s certainly what we’re hoping for.”
Referring a key deadlock in Canadian diary market access, Dairy Farmers of Canada vice president David Wiens said, “For American farmers the Canadian market is a drop in the bucket. For us it’s our livelihood.” And he added that concessions in past trade deals had already hurt Canadian farmers.
US Chamber of Commerce President Thomas Donohue warned that a damaging trade war would be underway if Trump puts all his tariff threats to China into practice. However, he also added “if we can do something next week and get NAFTA done and we do it on a tripartite deal, if we make progress, by the way we are talking in Europe, if we can get that done…we can pretty quickly resolve some of this.”
In Japan, the chairman of the Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association, Akio Toyoda said “Japanese automakers’ businesses in North America are based on the NAFTA framework, and that framework is based on a three-party agreement.” And, “We hope that framework continues this way, and that it remains well-balanced.”
