Trump Renew Torments On NAFTA
United States President, Donald Trump, renewed his threat to scrap the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and ripped on trading partners Canada and Mexico in a tweet early on Sunday, days before the three countries were scheduled to hold a second round of negotiations on rewriting the 23-year-old agreement.
“We are in the NAFTA (worst trade deal ever made) renegotiation process with Mexico and Canada. Both being very difficult, may have to terminate?” he wrote.
Trump promised during his campaign to overhaul or eliminate the NAFTA, which he cast as killing jobs and exacerbating the U.S deficit, and to adopt a more protectionist stance on trade generally, Reuters reported.
The first five-day round of talks between the three countries concluded last Sunday, with all sides committing to follow an accelerated process in revamping the agreement.
The agreement was originally signed by former President Bill Clinton.
Going into the five-day round of negotiations starting September 1 in Mexico, Trump has kept the heat.
Both Mexico and Canada have dismissed his musing in a Tuesday speech that “we’ll end up probably terminating NAFTA at some point” as a negotiating tactic.
