WASHINGTON/MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexico on Friday said the U.S. Trump administration and Canada were making serious efforts to resolve trade policy differences after days of bickering, raising hopes of saving the North American Free Trade Agreement as a trilateral pact.
While details were scant, the apparent progress was enough to prompt Mexico and Washington to abruptly halt a plan to publish text of their own two-way trade deal, to give Canada more time to join.
In Mexico, President-elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador told reporters that Washington had made a new counter-proposal to Ottawa, adding that he would keep pushing for all three countries be part of NAFTA.
Mexican Economy Minister Ildefonso Guajardo said the delivery of the text to the Mexican and U.S. legislatures was delayed due to a “very serious” attempt by Ottawa and Washington to reach a deal.
“In the next 48 hours we will know if we are going to get to a trilateral text or if we are going to have to put forward the text of the bilateral agreement,” Guajardo said in televised remarks to the Mexican Senate.
Guajardo said his U.S. and Canadian counterparts “specifically requested” a delay in publishing the text.
The Trump administration had threatened to proceed with a Mexico-only trade pact as U.S. talks with Canada foundered in recent weeks amid deep differences over Canada’s support for its dairy market and a mechanism for settling trade disputes.
The NAFTA text, either bilateral or trilateral, is due by late Sunday night to meet U.S. congressional notification requirements to allow U.S.
