President Trump on Monday cheered the trade deal the U.S. struck with Canada, which had held out joining the new NAFTA agreed to by Mexico.
“Late last night, our deadline, we reached a wonderful new Trade Deal with Canada, to be added into the deal already reached with Mexico,” the president trumpeted on Twitter.
Mr. Trump will hold a press conference at 11 a.m. to formally announced the deal that replaces the North American Free Trade Agreement with the United States Mexico Canada Agreement or USMCA.
“It is a great deal for all three countries, solves the many deficiencies and mistakes in NAFTA, greatly opens markets to our Farmers and Manufacturers, reduces Trade Barriers to the U.S. and will bring all three Great Nations together in competition with the rest of the world. The USMCA is a historic transaction!” the president said in a series of tweets.
“Congratulations to Mexico and Canada!” he added.
The breakthrough deal promises to check off one of Mr. Trump’s top campaign promises from 2016.
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He vowed a redo of the 24-year-old NAFTA. He called it a “disaster” and threatened to rip it up if Canada and Mexico did not renegotiate it to his satisfaction.
The new deal aims to correct the longstanding criticism that the three-way NAFTA facilitated the exodus of U.S. jobs and manufacturing to Mexico.
The administration reached an agreement with Mexico in August.
Mr. Trump said he would slap tariffs on autos from Canada if they didn’t get on board.
The administration gave Canada an Oct. 1 deadline to join the deal before the U.S.-Mexico deal was submitted to Congress. The negotiations went down to the wire.
The deal with Canada got hung up on the country’s refusal to lower tariffs as high as 270 percent on dairy.
In the 11th-hour deal, Canada agreed to open its market to U.S. dairy.
Canada also insisted on keeping the so-called Chapter 19 dispute-settlement mechanism for anti-dumping and countervailing duties cases, such as the dispute over the new U.S. tariffs on steel and aluminum.
USMCA would keep Chapter 19.
Keeping Chapter 19 will not affect Washington’s enforcement of anti-dumping and anti-subsidy laws, a U.S. official told Reuters.
The steel and aluminum tariffs — a huge irritant to Canada — was not addressed in the agreement.
The U.S. and Canada agreed to phase out NAFTA’s investor-state dispute settlement process. The process will remain in place between certain sectors in the U.S. and Mexico.
• S.A. Miller can be reached at smiller@washingtontimes.com.
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