[CTC] Trump expected to put Congress on NAFTA alert Friday

Fri Aug 31 07:34:12 PDT 2018

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/08/31/trump-notify-congress-nafta-deal-mexico-canada-trade-763370

Trump expected to put Congress on NAFTA alert Friday
By MEGAN CASSELLA <https://www.politico.com/staff/megan-cassella> 08/31/2018 10:28 AM EDT

The Trump administration is gearing up to notify Congress on Friday that it plans to sign an updated NAFTA agreement later this year — either with or without Canada.

U.S. trade officials resumed talks with Canada on Friday morning. The Trump administration has yet to get Ottawa on board after nailing down a preliminary two-way pact with Mexico, but sources close to the negotiations said U.S. negotiators are working to try to send Congress formal notification of an agreement that includes both Mexico and Canada. The notification will likely be sent in the form of a letter to lawmakers from U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, who said earlier this week that notification would be made on Friday.

Officials are under pressure to send the notification on Friday at the latest because it would allow them to sign a deal on Nov. 29, a day before Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto leaves office on Nov. 30. Mexican President-elect Andrés Manuel López Obrador has been pressuring Peña Nieto’s administration to wrap up a deal as quickly as possible so that it can be signed before he takes over the presidency on Dec. 1. 

The formal notification is required if the Trump administration wants to be able to submit the final deal to Congress under what’s known as fast-track authority, which requires only a straight up-or-down vote for approval.

Even after the administration sends its letter, the three countries are likely to continue working out final details over the coming month. It was unclear on Friday morning whether the U.S. and Canada would be able to bridge their differences in time to solve remaining issues by the end of the day. 

A USTR spokesperson noted Friday that talks between the two countries were “ongoing” but added that “there have been no concessions by Canada on agriculture.” Contentious issues over dairy between the two countries have long been a subject of President Donald Trump’s ire, and he and top members of his administration have repeatedly emphasized that they need to see concessions from Ottawa on dairy in order to reach a deal. 

Meetings restarted on Friday morning after Lighthizer and Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland held four separate sessions on Thursday that drew to a close about 10:15 p.m. “We’ve all had a night to reflect, and I’m looking forward to what Ambassador Lighthizer has to say this morning,” Freeland said as she returned to the USTR building Friday morning.

The plan to make the formal notification came after Trump announced in the Oval Office on Monday that the U.S. and Mexico, after weeks of two-way talks, had agreed on a preliminary framework that he termed the U.S.-Mexico Trade Agreement. 

Lighthizer’s remarks that the administration planned to send its notification Friday then prompted Freeland to cut short a diplomatic trip to Europe to fly to Washington to resume negotiations. Canada had not participated in NAFTA talks for more than a month.

Trump threatened to have the two-way deal with Mexico replace NAFTA and said he would leave Canada on the sidelines if officials did not agree to negotiate “fairly.” But in the days since, both sides had seemed optimistic that issues could be wrapped up in the near future, if not on Friday.

"I think Canada very much wants to make the deal, and I think it's going to be, obviously, very good for Canada if they do," Trump said at the White House on Wednesday. "And I think it's probably not going to be good at all if they don't.” He added that talks were going “really well” and appeared on track to meet the Friday deadline the U.S. imposed.

The formal notification to Congress will pave the way for the officials to ultimately sign a deal no sooner than 90 days from now — or at the end of November — while also allowing some flexibility for them to continue working out details over the coming weeks. The letter starts the 90-day clock after which officials can sign an agreement, but preliminary text of the deal does not have to be provided to Congress until 60 days before the expected signing — giving negotiators roughly another month to work out the details.

“There’s some thought that … their game plan is if the Canadians don’t come on board by the end of the week, that they’ve still got some wiggle room over the next couple of weeks” to wrap up talks, said Welles Orr, a former assistant USTR for congressional affairs who now works at the Washington firm Miller & Chevalier. “Which, frankly, would probably be fine.” 

Sabrina Rodriguez and Adam Behsudi contributed to this report.

Arthur Stamoulis
Citizens Trade Campaign
(202) 494-8826

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