President Trump said he is “not looking to renew” the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA). According to the Office of the United States Trade Representative, the USMCA, enforced on July 1, 2020, came as a substitute for the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).
Trade Representative Jamieson Greer discussed the agreement with Fox Business’ “Mornings With Maria.” He said, “You have the USMCA underlying the relationship right now, we’ve seen a lot of flaws in that, we’ve seen our deficit go up with both countries over the years that USMCA has been in place,” and noted that the Trump administration is “trying to fix the flaws in that program.”
“We’re trying to change the rules, we call them rules of origin, to make sure people aren’t using Mexico as a third country hub,” he explained. “We would expect the same for Canada when we’re able to get to some kind of arrangement with them.”
Similarly, Trump told reporters this week, “I made the deal and the primary reason I made the deal is that NAFTA was the worst trade deal I’ve ever seen. Yeah. And I made it better. But I had the right to terminate.”
“I don’t know that I’m going to redo it because, to be honest with you. We don’t need anything Canada has, we don’t need anything that Mexico has, but they need everything that we have, and they have to treat us better,” Trump said, adding, “With Mexico and Canada, we have trade deficits. We should have surpluses with them. We don’t need their cars. We don’t need their lumber. We don’t need their energy. We don’t need anything.”
Canada has called for the United States and Mexico to renew the trade agreement. “The Agreement is highly beneficial to each of our countries and to the integrated North American economy,” wrote Dominic LeBlanc, Canada’s Minister for U.S. trade.
