CANADA/G7/NAFTA/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “Discussions on the North American Free Trade Agreement will continue into the summer, Canada’s Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland said following a face-to-face meeting in Washington with the Trump administration’s chief trade envoy on Thursday [6-14-18]. The pledge to carry on with Nafta renegotiations comes on the heels of a tumultuous Group of Seven summit in La Malbaie, Quebec, which ended with President Donald Trump rejecting a final communiqué by the leaders over comments by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on a U.S.-Canada trade row. The U.S. had previously agreed to sign on. Trade analysts and officials say relations between the U.S. and Canada have hit a low point after the U.S. extended steel and aluminum tariffs to include Canada, the European Union and Mexico, which is likely to complicate talks on Nafta. Canada has announced retaliatory tariffs that are set to come into effect July 1. Mr. Trump warned retaliatory tariffs would be a mistake…Asked for her opinion of reaching a bilateral agreement between the U.S. and Canada—a notion Mr. Trump has brought up frequently—Ms. Freeland said that as a practical matter such an arrangement would be difficult to implement, the lawmaker said. Any agreement would have to be ratified by Congress, raising a collection of thorny issues that could be hard to sort out.”
-Kim Mackrael and Paul Vieira, “Nafta Talks Will Extend Into Summer, Canadian Official Says,” The Wall Street Journal, June 14, 2018 4:04 pm