ASSESSMENTS

A New Trade Deal Gets NAFTA Members Back Together

Oct 1, 2018 | 21:49 GMT

U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a press conference to discuss a revised U.S. trade agreement with Mexico and Canada in the Rose Garden of the White House on Oct. 1, Washington, DC.

U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a press conference to discuss a revised U.S. trade agreement with Mexico and Canada in the Rose Garden of the White House on Oct. 1.

(CHIP SOMODEVILLA/Getty Images)

Highlights

  • The United States, Mexico and Canada have reached a new trade agreement that largely replicates the North American Free Trade Agreement, with a few significant changes in the automotive and dairy sectors, as well as in environmental and labor standards.
  • The stance that Washington adopted in the negotiations on issues such as currency manipulation, labor standards and the auto sector will probably influence its future trade talks, including those with Japan and the European Union.
  • Though the United States has agreed to exclude Canada and Mexico from steeper auto tariffs, it may still use the threat in negotiations.

A truly North American free trade deal is back on the table. In the last minutes of Sept. 30, just before their midnight deadline, negotiators from Canada and the United States reached an agreement on a trilateral deal to replace NAFTA, the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA). The pact will spare Washington many of the challenges of moving ahead with a bilateral trade deal with Mexico while still enabling it to finalize a new agreement before Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto leaves office. And though the deal looks a lot like the North American Free Trade Agreement -- most of NAFTA's chapters, in fact, are unchanged in the USMCA -- it addresses some of the United States' biggest concerns....

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