[CTC] Guajardo to meet with Lighthizer on July 26; Freeland not scheduled to visit

[Arthur Stamoulis]

INSIDE US TRADE

Guajardo to meet with Lighthizer on July 26; Freeland not scheduled to visit

July 18, 2018 

Mexican Economy Secretary Ildefonso Guajardo will travel to Washington, DC on July 26 to meet with U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, Mexican sources confirmed to Inside U.S. Trade.

Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland is not scheduled to be in Washington, DC next week, sources said.

This will be the first meeting between Guajardo and Lighthizer since the Mexican presidential election. USTR declined to comment on the July 26 meeting.

The Lighthizer-Guajardo bilateral comes as President Trump reiterated the possibility of doing separate bilateral deals with Mexico and Canada at a cabinet meeting on Wednesday.

“We’ve had very good sessions with Mexico, and with the new president of Mexico, who won overwhelmingly,” Trump said, according to press reports <https://www.thestar.com/news/world/2018/07/18/donald-trump-says-he-might-negotiate-trade-deal-with-mexico-first-canada-later.html>. “And we’re doing very well on our trade agreement. So we’ll see what happens. We may do separately with Mexico and we’ll negotiate with Canada at a later time.”

White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said the NAFTA talks are continuing on a bilateral and trilateral basis.

“We're continuing both of those tracks,” she said at her press briefing on Wednesday. “We see a lot of progress on the conversations with Mexico, and if we could make a bilateral deal with them, we're certainly very happy to do that.”

Lighthizer, Guajardo and Freeland have not met for a ministerial since they failed to conclude the NAFTA renegotiation in mid-May, an informal deadline set by House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) that would have allowed the current session of Congress to vote on a completed pact.

A spokesman for Freeland downplayed the possibility that the U.S. and Mexico could proceed with a bilateral without Canada. “NAFTA is a trilateral agreement that has set a productive framework for trade and investment in North America for the past 24 years,” spokesman Adam Austen said in an email. “We remain focused on modernizing and improving this agreement in [a] way that benefits the middle class in all three countries. There have been regular bilateral engagements between the three NAFTA countries in the context of these trilateral negotiations and we expect that to continue.‎” -- Brett Fortnam (bfortnam at iwpnews.com <mailto:bfortnam at iwpnews.com>)
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