[CTC] Mexico's chief NAFTA negotiator back in D.C. to work on final text

[Arthur Stamoulis]

Mexico's chief NAFTA negotiator back in D.C. to work on final text

PoliticoPRO

By Sabrina Rodriguez 

09/12/2018 03:00 PM EDT

Mexico's chief NAFTA negotiator, Kenneth Smith Ramos, returns to Washington today to continue working on the final text for the two-way deal with the United States that must be turned over to Congress by the end of the month.

Smith Ramos' trip comes as negotiators from the U.S. and Canada have been unable to reach a breakthrough that would allow for Canada to be included in the new NAFTA framework that the U.S. and Mexico announced last month. 

The Trump administration is required under the trade promotion authority law to provide Congress with the agreement text 60 days before signing the deal. The U.S. and Mexico plan to sign a deal on Nov. 30, before Mexican President-elect Andrés Manuel López Obrador takes office. 

Mexican officials are still holding out hope that Canada will be part of the final deal.

"It interests us very much to have Canada accompanying us in the process," Mexican Economy Secretary Ildefonso Guajardo said today at the Institute of International Finance's Mexico Economic Forum. He added that the trilateral nature of NAFTA is an asset.

However, Guajardo said Mexico remains willing to go ahead without Canada, a scenario "that we don't expect, but that cannot be ruled out."

If the final deal is bilateral, the U.S. and Mexico will need to revise four or five issues that were addressed under the notion that it would be a three-way deal with Canada, Guajardo said.

Guajardo confirmed Smith Ramos' work trip to Washington but did not specify how long he will be in town.

Mexico's deputy chief NAFTA negotiator, Salvador Behar Lavalle, will also be in Washington with Smith Ramos, two sources close to the talks told POLITICO.


Arthur Stamoulis
Citizens Trade Campaign
(202) 494-8826




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