Trade Representative Says NAFTA Talks Are Going To Take A While To Sort Out

U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer said on Wednesday there was no deadline for completing NAFTA trade talks between the United States, Canada and Mexico even as lawmakers warned that U.S. business would be hurt by prolonged negotiations.

"There is no deadline. My hope is that we can get it done by the end of the year, but there are a lot of people who think that is completely unrealistic," Lighthizer told a Senate Finance Committee hearing to discuss the USTR's budget. He said reaching a NAFTA deal by year-end was a "very, very quick timeframe (and) we're not going to have a bad agreement to save time."

Under U.S. law, Lighthizer, a veteran trade lawyer, will be the principal U.S. negotiator on NAFTA, although U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross will have a major role.

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MDarringer - 6/22/2017 4:31:01 PM

0 Boost

The partner that is going to lose is Canada. Mexico will be fine. The USA will be better off.

LexSucks - 6/22/2017 5:44:34 PM

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No such thing as free trade

qwertyfla - 6/22/2017 8:52:55 PM

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The only issues with Canada is dairy, poultry and softwood. Dairy and Poultry were never part of free trade or NAFTA as we have an asinine quota system whereby we pay the eqivalent of $6 per gallon of homogenized milk. Poultry is ridiculously higher here so I say bring it on and make us open those markets to the yanks as it will dramatically lower costs here.

Softwood is a non issue. We are not dumping softwood into the US but we do have lower harvesting costs as we have more land and trees on Crown land whereas the Americans have to pay some hefty royalties to private land owners. This has already been disputed 3X with the WTO and Canada has won every time and will do so again.

The only other issues is the US-Canada trade deficit which is very minimal in comparison to Mexico, Germany, China and many other countries. Some years it was the other way around whereby we bought more US goods than Uncle Sam bought from us. Average it out and it works out pretty much even.

One could easily argue the whole "Buy American" Federal and State Provisions are a clear violation of NAFTA and we have NEVER closed our borders to the US for any Federal or Provincial contracts nor does any government ever utter "Buy Canadian" stipulations and we currently do over 1 Billion per day with Murica and much of that is raw resources heading south.

Trump is doing what Trump does best -deal and negotiate and good for him as he is working for the best interests of America and trying to get America the best damn deal but he is grabbing at straws. The real issue and enemy is China with their currency manipulation and devaluation practices which screws the whole world over.

MDarringer - 6/22/2017 11:16:34 PM

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F'ing over Mexico will be bad for the 2018 elections, so a win-win with Mexico is a win for the GOP. With Castro's bastard son running Canada, I'm sure Trump would love to screw Trueblow over.

qwertyfla - 6/23/2017 8:26:55 AM

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Matt

Our part time drama school teacher dip-shit Prime Minister Mohamed Tru-dope isn't running Canada -George Soros is and even has one of his NY based executives siting and advising us on our Immigration advisory board. A treasonous anti-American Jew hating Jewish American (Soros) whom is the primary funder of the terrorist organization -black live matter and largest $1B Hillary donor.

His goal is simple -one world government under the UN -Useless Nations elitist regime and Trudeau the self admitted feminist PM is all too happy to push us under the bus and sell out our country as he Islamifies Canada to buy more liberal votes.

This incompetent idiot trust fund putz is also making it illegal to say anything negative about Islam like "female circumcision is barbaric" -which it is and soon this will be a punishable offence. This same asshole also reversed previous legislation whereby we can't strip a terrorist of his Canadian citizenship or Permanent residency status because that would infringe upon his rights. Terrorist have no fucking rights and should be terminated PERIOD. Meanwhile in Toronto Imans can preach "death to Jews and Infidels" and "be good Jihadists" which is hate speech (and so is the Koran) but the Police do nothing as they don't want to upset the Muslims.

This same Lefty Liberal bullshit is slowly taking over America as well and 51% of American Muslims surveyed would prefer Sharia Law over American democracy. America needs to close her borders and build a Mexican and Canadian wall. I also hope Trump mops the floor with our idiot stick PM who think budgets balance themselves. God we are fucked!