U.S. Trade Rep. Lighthizer 'Concerned' About State of Nafta Talks
November 21 2017 - 7:08PM
Dow Jones News
By Jacob M. Schlesinger
MEXICO CITY--President Donald Trump's chief trade negotiator
issued a downbeat assessment of ongoing talks to rewrite the North
American Free Trade Agreement, saying he was "concerned about the
lack of headway" from the latest round of negotiations ended here
Tuesday.
"Thus far, we have seen no evidence that Canada or Mexico are
willing to seriously engage on provisions that will lead to a
rebalanced agreement," U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer
said in a statement released at the end of the fifth round of
talks. U.S. officials use the term "rebalanced" to refer to their
proposals aimed at overhauling Nafta in a way that would steer more
production back to the U.S. from Mexico, and curb the U.S. trade
deficit with the other countries.
"Absent rebalancing, we will not reach a satisfactory result,'
Mr. Lighthizer said.
Mr. Lighthizer did not elaborate on what an unsatisfactory
result would mean, but Mr. Trump has repeatedly threatened to pull
out of the 23-year-old pact if he is unhappy with the efforts to
rewrite it.
While the three countries have agreed to keep negotiating at
least until the end of March, Mr. Lighthizer also suggested that
the Trump administration wants to see significant compromise from
Mexico and Canada much sooner.
"I hope our partners will come to the table in a serious way so
we can see meaningful progress before the end of the year," he
said.
In a separate trilateral statement, the three governments said
that "progress was made in a number of chapters," during the five
days of talks.
They also announced that they had set the next found of talks
for Jan. 23-28 in Montreal, but that mid-levels would have an
informal set of meetings in Washington in mid-December.
Write to Jacob Schlesinger at jacob.schlesinger@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
November 21, 2017 18:53 ET (23:53 GMT)
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