Negotiations over the new NAFTA could run far beyond the March 31 deadline, and perhaps into 2019, said the Washington Post, citing “industry leaders and others close to the negotiations,” including the head of Farmers for Free Trade. The U.S. farm and agribusiness sector is pressing loudly for a new pact and against President Trump’s threat to withdraw from the treaty.
The chief executive of Tyson Foods said on the Fox Business channel that U.S. withdrawal would hurt U.S. food and ag operations, which now have duty-free access to their North American neighbors. “For the agriculture community, in the United States, it is enormously positive,” said Tyson’s Tom Hayes. “So we just want do no harm and certainly it needs to be revised — a 25-year-old agreement, a lot can be changed, but the substance and parts that affect U.S. agriculture we would like to be left intact.”
Canada and Mexico account for one-third of U.S. ag and food trade. The United States is calling for Canada to eliminate its supply management system for dairy, poultry and eggs, and has suggested new protections against seasonal surges of fruit and vegetables from Mexico.
The trade ministers of the three NAFTA nations are to meet today to assess the state of negotiations. “Negotiators’ original goal of a deal by the end of 2017 slipped to March 31 after several rounds of talks made little progress. Mexican officials are reluctant to negotiate much beyond that point, with a July 1 presidential election looming,” said the Post. At the moment, plans call for the seventh round of talks to be held in Mexico City in late February, and the following round in Washington in March. If a new schedule is arranged, “it also raises the prospect that President Trump could complete his first two years in the White House without fulfilling his campaign promise to scrap the North American Free Trade Agreement or reach a better deal.”