Lighthizer says NAFTA talks moving fast but no deal in the offing yet

The top U.S. trade official said Monday that talks with Canada and Mexico to modernize the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) are moving swiftly but it is difficult to determine whether a deal can be reached.

U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer said that while there is a need to move quickly because of elections in the United States and Mexico, the negotiations are “complicated” and “intense” and will take some time.

{mosads}Lighthizer said NAFTA negotiations are moving at “warp speed” but “we don’t know whether we’re going to reach a conclusion and that’s a problem,” he said during remarks at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. 

“There are reasons to move quickly on a renegotiation, if that’s what you’re going to do, as quickly as you can do it,” he said. 

President Trump has said he would withdraw from the agreement if the United States can’t reach a deal favorable to the nation’s trade needs.

Before talks opened last month on the 23-year-old agreement, Lighthizer said the deal needs to be updated to take account of changes across digital trade, e-commerce and intellectual property.

While NAFTA has been positive for some sectors of the economy like agriculture, Lighthizer said that “for countless Americans, this agreement has failed.”

“We cannot ignore the huge trade deficits, the lost manufacturing jobs, the businesses that have closed or moved because of incentives, intended or not, in the current agreement,” he said last month. 

The U.S., Mexico and Canada have completed two rounds of talks with the third set to start Saturday in Ottawa.

During his remarks, Lighthizer also said that a review of all U.S. trade agreements is expected to come out in a month or so.