Mexico vows it won't cut a separate trade deal with Trump Officials reassure Canadian visitors they are not looking at a bilateral alternative to NAFTA
Mexican officials went out of their way yesterday to tell their Canadian counterparts not to read anything into the fact that their trade negotiators and the Americans are meeting bilaterally in Washington on Friday — that the new government in Mexico City isn't planning to cut a separate deal with the U.S. outside of NAFTA.
"The fact that this time we're going to Washington for a bilateral is just a sequence of things," said Mexico's Secretary of the Economy Ildefonso Guajardo, who handles the NAFTA file. He added that the Canadian and American negotiating teams also often hold two-way talks, and Friday's bilateral isn't an indication that Canada could be left out in the cold.
"It's just a method, not a direction," Guajardo continued. "We're not moving in the direction of a bilateral agreement. We still want a trilateral NAFTA."
In a joint news conference with his Canadian counterpart Chrystia Freeland yesterday, Mexico's Foreign Minister Luis Videgaray insisted that "we will be closing ranks with Canada … For us, NAFTA is a trilateral agreement."
The statement came in response to speculation prompted by a series of public claims by U.S. President Donald Trump that the U.S. and Mexico would make a separate two-way trade deal to replace NAFTA.