CANADA/MEXICO/NAFTA/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “President Donald Trump couldn’t get what he wanted from months of three-way trade talks with Canada and Mexico. So now his administration wants to pursue separate negotiations with the two U.S. neighbors to try to overhaul the 24-year-old North American Free Trade Agreement, which Trump has condemned as a job-killing disaster. Trump’s top economic adviser, Larry Kudlow, went on ‘Fox & Friends’ on Tuesday [6-5-18] to convey the president’s preference for dealing separately with Canada and Mexico. Kudlow said Trump doesn’t plan to abandon NAFTA — something the president has threatened since taking office — but ‘is just going to try a different approach.’ Yet it’s far from clear that separate discussions by the United States with Mexico and Canada could leave the three-nation NAFTA deal altered but intact…By saying there is no plan to leave NAFTA, ‘he’s probably trying to keep the markets calm … while we negotiate separate bilateral agreements.’ Trade analysts said they were skeptical that Canada and Mexico, angry that the U.S. has slapped tariffs on their steel and aluminum, would be drawn into one-on-one negotiations to appease Washington.”
-Paul Wiseman and Darlene Superville, “Trump seeks separate talks with Canada and Mexico over NAFTA,” The Associated Press, June 5, 2018 2:17 pm