CUSMA trade deal talks likely won’t be resolved by July 1: U.S. trade rep

U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer has said he doesn’t expect negotiations on the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA) on trade to be resolved by July 1 — a key date in ongoing review talks.

Speaking at the Washington-based Hudson Institute on Tuesday, Greer said that while the Trump administration is looking to resolve trade issues quickly, it seems unlikely that the agreement will get the green light by the July target.

The Trump administration began formal negotiations with Mexico last month, but Greer has said it “is behind” and that several ongoing complaints are frustrating the Americans, including provinces refusing to sell American alcohol products as part of the ‘Buy Canadian’ movement opposing U.S. tariffs.

“What happens on July 1 is the question,” Greer said on Tuesday.

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“On July 1, what has to happen is the United States tells Canada and Mexico what we intend to do; do we intend to just rubber stamp this thing and say, ‘alright, renewed, everything’s fine, let’s hold hands and move on,’ or do we say ‘this is not sufficient, we have to have modifications to this agreement, we have to change it.'”

Greer had also told Fox Business on March 18 that “we’re having talks separately with Canada, but we’ve moved along with Mexico,” yet “Canada is behind on this.”

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Greer believes that “things have to be changed” within the agreement.

“There were a lot of folks who expressed support for the agreement, there were a lot of stakeholders who suggested that it hadn’t gone far enough away from NAFTA,” he said. “There’s a variety of views on all of this.”

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Greer also spoke on U.S. President Donald Trump’s stance on CUSMA, which Americans call USMCA (United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement).

“President Trump has been clear that he is dissatisfied with a lot of the outcomes of the CUSMA, so while we certainly focus on the provisions, the nature of the provisions, the rules in origin, all these different things, the president is constantly looking at outcomes,” he said.

“When the president sees that, the data, it makes it more difficult for anyone to go to him and say, ‘USMCA is working like you intended,’ when he intended to have more balanced trade with Canada and Mexico.”

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Canada-U.S. Trade Minister Dominic LeBlanc met with Greer in Washington on March 6, which was recognized as a positive sign in Canada-U.S. relations after Trump halted negotiations with Canada last year because he was upset by an Ontario-sponsored ad quoting former president Ronald Reagan criticizing tariffs.

There has been no formal announcement of when negotiations between the neighbours will restart.