[CTC] Sources: Sixth NAFTA round to be held in Washington in December, without ministers

[Arthur Stamoulis]

INSIDE US TRADE
 
Sources: Sixth NAFTA round to be held in Washington in December, without ministers

November 02, 2017 
The three NAFTA countries have agreed to hold a sixth round of talks in Washington, DC, in December, which will be led by the chief negotiators but not attended by U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer or his counterparts, sources told Inside U.S. Trade.

The new time line means the next round of talks, in Canada -- which had initially been scheduled for December -- will be pushed into 2018. At the closing of round four, ministers said they had agreed to extend the negotiations through the first quarter of 2018 and delay the subsequent round to “explore creative ways” to bridge “significant conceptual gaps” among the parties and their respective proposals.

Sources said dates for the December meeting have not yet been set.

They noted a potential scheduling conflict for the ministers in December: The World Trade Organization ministerial, set to take place Dec. 10-13 in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

The December meeting, led by chief negotiators John Melle, Ken Smith Ramos and Steve Verheul, will be an opportunity for the three countries to “map out” the schedule for 2018 and take stock of the progress made, sources said.

Negotiating teams will meet for the fifth round of talks Nov. 16-21 in Mexico City.

Whether the parties can make progress on the more controversial proposals advanced by the U.S., including those on a sunset clause, government procurement and dispute settlement, remains uncertain, sources said -- but some expressed confidence that the three countries could close out additional chapters and make headway on the less controversial topics at the Mexico City round.

Some also said they expected Canada and Mexico to make counter-proposals to the controversial U.S. texts, but one source said they likely will be “miles away” from what would satisfy the Trump administration.

USTR declined to comment on the December meeting.

The fourth round ended with Lighthizer publicly slamming his Canadian and Mexican counterparts for what he called their “resistance to change <https://insidetrade.com/node/160657>.”

“Frankly, I am surprised and disappointed by the resistance to change from our negotiating partners on both fronts,” he said on Oct. 17, standing between Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland and Mexican Economy Secretary Ildefonso Guajardo. Lighthizer said that while “some headway” had been made on updating the 23-year-old agreement, “we have seen no indication that our partners are willing to make any changes that will result in a rebalancing and a reduction in these huge trade deficits.”

Asked after the round about the delay and the new time line for the talks, Lighthizer told reporters “there was never really a deadline in any way. What our judgment was, from the beginning, that there was a reason to try to target the end of the year if we could.”

“But the end of the year was never a hard target. It was never anything that I cared about other than in the context of thinking it had some impact on the Mexican situation,” he said on Oct. 17, referring to the Mexican presidential elections set to take place in July 2018.

Freeland, at a separate press conference that day, emphasized that she felt the decision to delay the fifth round was “really significant.”

“The fact that we're going to take a little bit more time between rounds and the fact that we're now scheduling rounds until the end of the first quarter to me shows a very serious approach, a professional approach, a pragmatic approach, and goodwill from all three parties,” she said. “And that is good news for Canadians, and by the way, it's good news for Americans and Mexicans too.” -- Jenny Leonard(jleonard at iwpnews.com <mailto:jleonard at iwpnews.com>)


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