US President Donald Trump on Saturday threatened Twitter to exclude Canada from the North American free trade agreement NAFTA.
“There is no political necessity to keep Canada in the new NAFTA deal, if we can not make adequate deals for the United States after decades of abuse, Canada will go out.”
Trump claims that the US Congress should not interfere in the discussion of the deal. Otherwise, it will merely end NAFTA “, and we are much better off”, the president stated.
Trump calls NAFTA one of the worst trade deals ever made. If it is up to him, a new agreement will be made, and the US will return to the pre-NAFTA era.
Friday the talks about a new deal between Canada and the US were aborted. The parties would try again on Wednesday to reach an agreement that should be an alternative to the free trade agreement.
According to the reports, Trump said he did not want to be flexible. In a classified remark that quickly leaked, Trump said he “does not want to compromise with Canada at all”, but that he would rather keep it for himself or else, there will be no deal at all.
NAFTA has been in force since 1994. The treaty yielded a much boost for trade between Mexico, the US and Canada. It is mainly not the first time that Trump has raised the end of the free trade agreement.
In June he mentioned that the time was possibly ripe for separate trade agreements with Canada and Mexico.
According to sources at the time, since the announcement of trade tariffs by Trump, there was less need to reach an agreement quickly. Negotiations on trade agreements could, according to experts, drag on until late in 2019. The new US Congress will seemingly take any decision on a renewed NAFTA deal.
