US /

New NAFTA Deal Forged Just Before US Deadline

Canada will be part of 'USMCA'
By Newser Editors and Wire Services
Posted Oct 1, 2018 12:31 AM CDT
Updated Oct 1, 2018 6:47 AM CDT
Canada-US Reach Deal for NAFTA Replacement
Minister of Foreign Affairs Chrystia Freeland and Gerald Butts, senior political advisor to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, walk in the loading dock of the Office of the Prime Minister and Privy Council, in Ottawa on Sunday, Sept. 30, 2018.   (Justin Tang/The Canadian Press via AP)

Canada and the United States reached a deal Sunday night for Canada to stay in a free trade pact with the US and Mexico. In a joint statement late Sunday, US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland said the agreement "will strengthen the middle class, and create good, well-paying jobs and new opportunities for the nearly half billion people who call North America home." The new deal, reached just before a midnight deadline imposed by the US, will be called the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, or USMCA. It replaces the 24-year-old North American Free Trade Agreement, which President Trump had called a job-killing disaster.

The agreement reached Sunday gives US farmers greater access to the Canadian dairy market. But it keeps a NAFTA dispute-resolution process that the US wanted to jettison and offers Canada protection if Trump goes ahead with plans to impose tariffs on cars, trucks, and auto parts imported into the United States, the AP reports. "It's a good day for Canada," Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said as he left his office. Canada, the United States' No. 2 trading partner, was left out when the US and Mexico reached an agreement last month to revamp NAFTA. US-Canada talks bogged down earlier this month, and most trade analysts expected the Sept. 30 deadline to come and go without Canada being reinstated.

(More NAFTA stories.)

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