Despite the agreement of a revised version of the North American Free Trade Agreement both Canada and Mexico expect more cooperation from the United States, general consuls of the two countries said at an event Wednesday.
By enabling free trade within the North American trade bloc, NAFTA is responsible for 14 million American jobs. Panelists said that the trade relationship enabled economic growth, increased employment and lowered consumer prices for all three nations. The recent negotiation aimed to modernize a trade partnership that would consider the 21st century tech-based economy, as well as the needs of the working class.
Renamed the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, the revised NAFTA established more stringent standards for goods to qualify as duty-free, but maintained the trade relationship among the North American trade bloc.
The three countries expect to sign the official agreement on Nov. 30.
“[The talks] really did descend into a lot of ugly rhetoric,” said Nadia Theodore, consul general of Canada.
She added that the negotiation process was admittedly challenging—during the negotiation, the United States threw multiple curve balls that were difficult for Canada and Mexico to swallow.
Trump’s demands for Canada included a provision requiring that vehicles built in North America have at least 85 percent of their materials originating in a NAFTA country—a sharp increase from the original 62.5 percent.
The United States also pushed a stipulation that NAFTA is only renewed for five years, a provision that Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau firmly resisted. The dispute angered Trump, who tweeted on June 9 that Trudeau was “dishonest and weak” as well as “meek and mild.”
Despite the renegotiation for NAFTA, the general consuls who attended the panel discussion called for improved diplomatic sportsmanship from the United States.
“There’s room to deepen and improve our relationship,” said Remedios Gómez Arnau, panelist and consul general of Mexico.
The consuls said that Canada and Mexico expect that with the new agreement, the United States will lift the 25 percent steel and aluminum tariffs imposed in February, which both countries criticized and retaliated against dollar-for-dollar.
Both general consuls argued that the economic power of NAFTA outweighs any disagreement between elected officials and the interdependent economies of the three countries would inevitably endure.
“It will take us some effort to bring us back up from [the tension], but the Canada-United States relationship is bigger and stronger and deeper than any two people," Theodore said. "This is a blip in a very long and robust relationship."
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