Canada Keen to Wrap Up NAFTA Talks

Canada is “very keen” on concluding negotiations to renew the North American Free Trade Agreement as soon as possible, Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland said on Saturday, amid signs of progress after months of delays, Reuters reported. Talks to modernize the 1994 trade pact started in August 2017 but have dragged on much longer than expected as Canada and Mexico pushed back against far-reaching US demands for reform. President Donald Trump has said he will walk away from NAFTA unless major changes are made. In a renewed push, Mexican and US cabinet ministers held a series of meetings in Washington over the past week in a bid to work out their differences. One Mexican official expressed optimism that some kind of agreement could be reached by the end of the month. Mexican and US officials are due to meet again next week to work on contentious issues such as wages and rules governing how much North American produced content an automobile must contain to qualify for duty-free status.