OTTAWA/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States and Canada reached a deal to update NAFTA and keep it a trilateral pact with Mexico, beating a midnight deadline with agreements to boost U.S. access to Canada’s dairy market and protect Canada from possible U.S. autos tariffs, two Canadian sources with direct knowledge of the talks said on Sunday.
Word of the deal came as Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau convened a 10 p.m. (0200 GMT Monday) Cabinet meeting to discuss the North American Free Trade Agreement talks.
A U.S. official said a few minutes earlier that the United States and Canada were “very close” to a deal.
U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration has said Canada must sign on to the text of the updated NAFTA by a midnight Sunday deadline (0400 GMT Monday) or face exclusion from the pact. Washington has already reached a bilateral deal with Mexico, the third NAFTA member.
Trump blames NAFTA for the loss of American manufacturing jobs and wants major changes to the pact, which underpins $1.2 trillion in annual trade. Markets fear its demise would cause major economic disruption.
Negotiators from both sides spent two days talking by phone as they tried to settle a range of difficult issues such as access to Canada’s dairy market and U.S. tariffs.
The Canadian source said Canada had agreed to a cap on its automotive exports to the United States in the event that the Trump administration imposes global
