The U.S. and Canada will resume high-level talks on Tuesday, which is earlier than expected, on the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).
Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland and U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer will meet to try to hammer out the final complex details of a North American agreement with the aim of including all three countries in a deal, according to news reports.
{mosads}Discussions weren’t expected to get going again until the end of the week.
The U.S. and Canada met for most of last week without reaching a resolution. They are aiming to complete a deal by the end of the month so the three nations — Mexico, Canada and the United States — can sign an agreement by the end of November.
On Monday, Lighthizer spent was in Brussels to meet with his counterpart, European Union Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmström, for the first time since President Trump and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker agreed in July to discuss a possible transatlantic trade deal.
Lighthizer’s office said in a statement that he “had a constructive meeting” with Malmström to “improve trade relations between the United States and the European Union.”
The trade ministers are set to meet again at the end of the month. In October, staff will hold further discussions on identifying and reducing tariff and nontariff barriers, with more meetings expected in November to resolve issues in several areas, the office said.
Malmström called the meeting “forward-looking.”
“We discussed how to move forward and identify priorities on both sides, and how to achieve concrete results in the short to medium term,” she said on Twitter.
There are still several prickly issues that are unresolved between Canada and the U.S., including a compromise on U.S. access to the Canadian dairy market, cultural exemptions and a dispute settlement resolution system in Chapter 19 of the NAFTA deal that allows Canada to challenge U.S. tariffs.
Last week, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said “we need to keep the Chapter 19 dispute resolution because that ensures that the rules are actually followed.”
“And we know we have a president who doesn’t always follow the rules as they’re laid out,” Trudeau said.