Trudeau: NAFTA deal possible by Friday, but only if good for Canada

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Wednesday that a deal to rework the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) may be possible by the United States’ Friday deadline, but that he’d rather leave the table than accept a subpar proposal.

“We recognize that there is a possibility of getting there by Friday, but it is only a possibility, because it will hinge on whether or not there is ultimately a good deal for Canada,” Trudeau told reporters, according to Reuters.

“No NAFTA deal is better than a bad NAFTA deal,” he added.

{mosads}Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland engaged in trade talks in Washington on Tuesday, after a trade agreement between the U.S. and Mexico was announced on Monday.

Freeland’s spokesperson, Adam Austen, said the announcement was “encouraging.”

However, the Financial Post reported that Freeland said earlier Wednesday, “When it comes to specific issues, we have a huge amount of work to do this week at the ministerial level and also the officials are really grinding through extensively.”

President Trump spoke about the negotiations in similarly tempered tones on Tuesday.

“We’ll see if Canada can be part of deal,” he said. If Canada does not sign on to the trade deal, the president threatened to impose tariffs on Canadian auto imports.

“I think with Canada, frankly, the easiest thing we can do is to tariff their cars coming in,” Trump said. “It’s a tremendous amount of money and it’s a very simple negotiation. It could end in one day and we take in a lot of money the following day.”

Trump vowed to renegotiate the 24-year-old trade pact between the U.S., Canada and Mexico. On Monday, he suggested that the parties might be close to a new framework after more than a year of negotiations.