NAFTA talks will resume May 7

After weeks of intense negotiations, trade officials agreed continue their talks on the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) next month.

Representatives from the United States, Mexico and Canada will meet again on May 7 in Washington. 

U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, Canada’s Chrystia Freeland and Mexico’s Ildefonso Guajardo have been meeting regularly in Washington over the past couple of weeks in a push to wrap up work on an updated NAFTA deal.

{mosads}

In the intervening week, Lighthizer is headed to China with several other Trump administration officials, including Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, to discuss a slew of issues in the trading relationship.

The three nations’ trade teams — which have held a series of technical meetings between April 4-27 in Washington — are expected to keep working on the deal during next week’s break for the leaders. 

“During more than three weeks, the teams deepened their technical work on all issues in the negotiations,” the Mexican Embassy said in a release. 

While progress is being made, negotiators say there are still major hurdles to overcome. 

Besides the issues in the agreement, which ran from autos to financial services, Canada and Mexico are particularly concerned with proposed steel and aluminum tariffs President Trump has promised to levy on all importers next week. 

The two trading partners have an exemption while talks continue. 

“There is no justification whatsoever for tariffs or quotas on Canadian steel or aluminum as a national security consideration,” Freeland told reporters on Friday. 

“We continue to hold that position,” she said.

A May 1 deadline to decide which nations will receive exemptions is expected to be extended, CNBC reported on Friday evening. 

But no details have emerged about what that means for U.S. allies, including the European Union, which had two leaders in Washington this week lobbying Trump against the tariffs.