[CTC] Kudlow: Trump won't quit NAFTA, but new deal uncertain & Trump Adviser Blames Canada for Failure to Finalize Nafta Reboot

[Arthur Stamoulis]

Two articles on outcome of G7 and NAFTA below...


https://www.politico.com/story/2018/06/10/kudlow-trump-nafta-trudeau-041630
Kudlow: Trump won't quit NAFTA, but new deal uncertain

By DOUG PALMER

06/10/2018 11:53 AM EDT

President Donald Trump will not withdraw from NAFTA, but it's unclear whether the United States can reach a new deal with Canada and Mexico, White House chief economic adviser Larry Kudlow said Sunday.

"We won’t withdraw from NAFTA. We are heavy into negotiations," Kudlow said in an interview on CBS' "Face the Nation," where he fumed over criticism that Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau made Saturday of Trump's decision to impose tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum products.

Kudlow characterized Trudeau's comments, made at a closing G-7 news conference, as a "betrayal" of the goodwill that Trump and other leaders had shown at the international meeting in Charlevoix, Quebec.

Kudlow repeated the possibility that current NAFTA agreement could be divided into separate bilateral pacts with Canada and Mexico, but then added a new deal might not be possible at all.

“I don’t know [if negotiators will reach a deal], because I think, again, Trudeau’s very unfortunate statements, his betrayal. He betrayed Trump," Kudlow said.

The three NAFTA partners have been negotiating a new agreement for 10 months as of next weekend and still appear to be far apart because of many controversial U.S. demands.

On Friday, standing alongside Trudeau before a private meeting with the prime minister, Trump told reporters it might be easier to reach a deal if the NAFTA talks were divided into separate, bilateral agreements.

Kudlow said Trump came to the G-7 summit of leading Western economies with a "vision," but Trudeau's criticism of the U.S. steel and aluminum tariffs put all that into doubt.

"President Trump spent two days, and this is something dear to my heart, talking ... to these heads of states about free trade, ending tariffs, ending tariff barriers, ending subsidies, stopping trade wars, moving toward fairness and [ending] unfair trading practices," Kudlow said.

"He's probably going to be the best trade reformer in several decades. Why would anyone want to undercut him?”




https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-06-09/-pretty-close-to-deal-on-nafta-sunset-clause-trump-says-at-g-7
Trump Adviser Blames Canada for Failure to Finalize Nafta Reboot

By
Josh Wingrove <https://www.bloomberg.com/authors/ASLqWCO-Zh4/josh-wingrove>
June 9, 2018, 12:00 PM EDT Updated on June 10, 2018, 11:57 AM EDT
President had said deal on key Nafta clause was ‘pretty close’
U.S. trade was key issue at G-7 leaders’ summit in Canada

Donald Trump’s trade adviser on Sunday blamed Canada for the failure to finalize a reboot of the North American Free Trade Agreement after months of negotiations.

“We’d have a great deal with Nafta by now if the Canadians would spend more time at the bargaining table and less time lobbying Capitol Hill, and our press and state governments here,” Peter Navarro said in an interview on “Fox News Sunday.” “They are just simply not playing fair. Dishonest. Weak.”

Navarro also said “there’s a special place in hell” for any foreign leader engaging in “bad faith diplomacy” with Trump, referring to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow also said on ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday that “we were very close to making a deal with Canada on Nafta” before Trudeau criticized the U.S. after a meeting of the Group of Seven nations, drawing a rebuke from Trump on Twitter. Many observers, include U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, have said the sides are not close to a deal.

The comments came a day after Trump said Nafta negotiators were “pretty close” to agreeing on some kind of sunset clause, a sticking point in talks -- but also after a spat developed between the U.S. president and Trudeau.

“Two things can happen on Nafta. We’ll either leave it the way it is as a threesome deal” and “change it very substantially,” Trump said Saturday in La Malbaie, Quebec, speaking to reporters before departing the Group of Seven leaders’ meeting. Otherwise, “we’re going to make a deal directly with Canada, directly with Mexico.”

‘Good Meeting’

Nafta was a key topic when Trump held a bilateral meeting with Trudeau on Friday, with Trump later saying they had a “very, very good meeting.” A frenzied effort in May to reach a deal that could pass the current U.S. Congress by the end of this year has stalled, in part after Trudeau’s final push ran up against Trump’s insistence on a five-year sunset clause that would see the pact renegotiated or killed after five years.

Any Nafta deal will have a sunset provision of some kind, Trump said Saturday, though he indicated some people are pushing against a five-year time frame. “We’re pretty close” on the sunset provision, he said.

The president also signaled that his Nafta partners would pay a bigger price if there’s no agreement.

Dizzying Reversals

“If a deal isn’t made, that would be a very bad thing for Canada and it would be a very bad thing for Mexico,” Trump said. “For the United States, frankly, it would be a good thing. But I’m not looking to do that. I’m not looking to play that game.”

Parsing Trump’s statements on Nafta can by dizzying. On Friday, he reiterated a threat to quit the existing pact altogether if he doesn’t get his way, only days after Kudlow said Trump wouldn’t walk away.

And after the Trudeau meeting Friday, the White House released a statement saying “the two leaders and their delegations are close to a deal,” while U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer said a few weeks ago that the nations are “nowhere near close to a deal.”

Trump has long stated a preference for two-way trade accords. He and Trudeau discussed the notion of a bilateral deal when they met Friday, according to a White House statement. They also discussed speeding up talks and the future of Nafta, a Canadian government official said late Friday. Canada is focused on maintaining a trilateral pact, the official said.

The window to pass a deal in this Congress has almost certainly closed, observers say, and Mexico will elect a new president on July 1. That means the Nafta process -- negotiating a deal, and then passing it in each country -- is almost certain to run into 2019.

— With assistance by Toluse Olorunnipa, Jennifer Epstein, and Ben Brody


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