The latest round of NAFTA negotiations ended last week without a breakthrough. US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer just said pledge to continue working with Mexico and Canada.
House Speaker Paul Ryan has given a May 17 deadline for notification of the new agreement. That’s a working deadline for having the new agreement to go through the current Congress by December.
But both Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland and Mexican Economy Minister Ildefonso Guajardo are more focused on the “quality” of the deal rather than the pressure of time.
Freeland said that “the negotiations will take as long as it takes to get a good deal.”
Guajardo emphasized that “we’re not going to sacrifice the quality of an agreement because of pressure of time.”