WASHINGTON — President Trump said Monday that the United States and Mexico had reached agreement to revise key portions of the North American Free Trade Agreement and would finalize it within days, suggesting he was ready to jettison Canada from the trilateral trade pact if the country did not get on board quickly. Speaking from the Oval Office on Monday, Mr. Trump touted the preliminary agreement with Mexico as a new trade pact that could replace Nafta and threatened to hit Canada with auto tariffs if it did not “negotiate fairly.”“They used to call it Nafta,” Mr. Trump said. “We’re going to call it the United States Mexico Trade Agreement,” adding that the term Nafta — which he has called the “worst” trade deal in history — had “a bad connotation” for the United States. The president has often floated the idea of reworking Nafta into one or more bilateral deals, but his comments threw the trade agreement’s future into doubt, prompting skepticism among lawmakers who support Nafta and concern among businesses whose supply chains depend on a deal encompassing Canada, Mexico and the United States. In dangling the prospect of a new, bilateral trade agreement, Mr. Trump appeared eager to pressure Canada to come to a quick resolution and accede to many of the United States’ demands.

Source: New York Times August 27, 2018 13:34 UTC