At the White House, President Donald Trump announced meetings with Canadian Ptime Minister Justin Trudeau and Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto to discuss the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). He said:
“We’re going to start some negotiations having to do with NAFTA,” Trump said.”Anybody ever hear of NAFTA?” he said. “I ran a campaign somewhat based on NAFTA. But we’re going to start renegotiating on NAFTA, on immigration, on security at the border.”
Trump has described NAFTA as “terrible.” If America cannot come to an agreement with Canada and Mexico, then it “will move to withdraw from it.”
President Bill Clinton signed the agreement with our neighbors in 1994. They all agreed to form “one of the world’s largest free trade zones by reducing or eliminating tariffs on most products.”
Trump will have to convince the Republicans in Congress to go along with a repeal of NAFTA if the meetings do not satisfy him. They support free trade and if that happens, America “runs the risk of being met with retaliatory tariff hikes in other countries — meaning the cost of goods shipped to the United States could become higher for American consumers, and US companies could lose access to key foreign markets.”
Trump spoke with Nieto on Saturday, who called the new president to offer congratulations. Trump praised Nieto and said the two will meet on January 31 to discuss immigration and border security.
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