(31 Aug 2018) Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland says the U.S. and Canada will continue to engage in trade talks, even though the two countries missed a deadline that the Trump administration had signaled after it came to a preliminary agreement with Mexico less than a week ago.
"We're not there yet," Freeland said. "Our objective in these talks is to update and modernize NAFTA in a way that is good for Canadians, good for Americans and good for Mexicans," she said.
President Donald Trump has notified Congress that he plans to sign a trade agreement with Mexico - and Canada, if it is willing - in 90 days, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer said Friday.
Lighthizer said the talks will resume Wednesday.
The talks are intended to bring Canada into a new trade accord that would replace the North American Free Trade Agreement.
The Trump administration had insisted that it wanted a deal by Friday, beginning a 90-day countdown that would let Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto sign the pact before leaving office Dec. 1.
But under U.S. trade rules, the U.S. team wouldn't have to make public the text of the revamped agreement for 30 additional days, possibly buying more time to reach a deal with the Canadians.
Lighthizer's statement Friday said Trump intends to sign a new trade deal with Mexico, whether or not Canada is part of it.
Earlier Friday Trump was quoted as saying privately that he wouldn't make compromises with Canada in their trade talks. His remarks raised doubts about whether the two countries could quickly reach a deal to keep Canada in the 24-year-old trading bloc, along with the United States and Mexico.
The Toronto Star obtained the president's comments from an interview that he gave to Bloomberg News on Thursday. Trump wanted the comments to remain private. Otherwise, the president reportedly said in the interview, "it's going to be so insulting they're not going to be able to make a deal."
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