Ministers from the United States, Canada and Mexico met last Monday to wrap up the latest round of NAFTA talks under the shadow of United States President Donald Trump’s proposed steep tariffs on steel and aluminum imports.
Trump was expected to finalise the tariffs, 25 per cent on steel and 10 per cent on aluminum, posing a tough challenge for U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, Canada’s Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland and Mexican Economy Minister Ildefonso Guajardo.
The Mexican and Canadian ministers are likely to press Trump’s trade envoy on whether their countries will be excluded from the blanket tariffs.
“I expect it to be front and centre” at the meeting, said Kevin Brady, the Republican chairman of the U. S. House of Representatives Ways and Means Committee, which oversees U.S. trade policy.
Officials have so far been evasive when asked how the three nations can continue trying to update the North American Free Trade Agreement at a time when the U.S. President is about to take a highly protectionist measure.
Brady led a delegation of U.S. lawmakers to Mexico City to press officials on the need to conclude the talks, which have unnerved financial markets worried about the possibility that the North American supply chain could be disrupted.
Speaking on Sunday, Brady said all fairly-traded steel should be excluded from the tariffs. U.S. stocks fell sharply on Thursday on fears of a looming trade war after Trump, a Republican, announced the planned tariffs.
The NAFTA talks are going slowly and the Mexico City round, the seventh of eight planned sets of negotiations, produced little of substance.
Eight days of talks in Mexico’s capital failed to make headway on new rules governing the content of products made in North America, which has been one of the most contentious issues in the talks.