Seeking to improve understanding, communication, and cooperation between Mexico and the United States by promoting original research, encouraging public discussion, and proposing policy options for enhancing the bilateral relationship.
09/22/2017 CNBC
Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross told CNBC on Friday that autos and auto parts are a key area in overhauling the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement.
The “scariest part” of NAFTA as it’s currently written is that autos and auto parts make up nearly all of the U.S. trade deficit with Mexico and Canada, Ross said on “Squawk Box.”
“Without that there would be a surplus,” he said.
09/22/2017 Bloomberg
North American trading partners are downplaying expectations for major progress from talks to update the free-trade agreement that resume in Ottawa on Saturday, even as the clock runs down on their goal of getting a quick deal.
Talks to rewrite the 1994 trade accord were spurred in August by U.S. President Donald Trump, who has regularly threatened to withdraw if he can’t wring out better terms for American workers and industries. While complex negotiations for a pact that underpins more than $1.2 trillion in annual trade typically could take years, the countries are pushing to wrap up talks on modernizing the North American Free Trade Agreement by December.
9/18/2017 The New York Times
The top United States trade negotiator said Monday that it was unclear whether Canada, Mexico and the United States could reach a deal to overhaul the North American Free Trade Agreement within the ambitious timetable set by the Trump administration.
In remarks ahead of a third round of talks beginning on Saturday in Ottawa, Robert Lighthizer, the United States trade representative, said negotiators were “moving at warp speed, but we don’t know whether we’re going to get to a conclusion, that’s the problem.”
09/14/2017 Bloomberg
Canada and Mexico bristled at an idea by the U.S. to include a five-year sunset provision in the North American Free Trade Agreement that would force partners to reconsider the deal or terminate it.
While a Nafta nation can currently exit the pact after giving its partners six months’ notice, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said Thursday it’s unlikely to occur. President Donald Trump has repeatedly threatened to quit Nafta if he can’t get better terms from re-negotiations that began in August.
09/13/2017 Fortune
Amazon.com is preparing to open a 1 million square-foot warehouse near Mexico City, sources familiar with the project said, part of an effort to boost its presence in Mexico’s nascent e-commerce industry.
The new warehouse is slated to be built in the Tepotzotlan municipality about 25 miles (40 km) north of the Mexican capital, according to four Mexico City real estate professionals familiar with the plans. Expected to be completed next year, the facility would triple Amazon’s distribution space in Mexico, home to around 120 million potential customers.
09/11/2017 Natural Gas Intel
The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) renegotiations are an opportunity to update the 1994 treaty so that it reflects changes in Mexico’s oil and natural gas sector and deepened ties to Canada and U.S. energy markets, according to analysts.
“North American energy markets have changed, and there are the new reforms in Mexico,” BDO Mexico’s Rita Mireya Valdivia Hernandez, a partner in the tax practice, told NGI. “We need to adapt or modify NAFTA so that it is aligned with what North America is today.”
Talks to hammer out the details of a new NAFTA began in mid-August with the first of seven negotiating rounds scheduled through December. Delegates from the United States, Mexico and Canada met again in early September, while the third round is scheduled for Sept. 23-27.
9/11/2017 The Washington Post
Recently, trade negotiators from the United States, Canada and Mexico concluded the first round of talks to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement. President Trump has made clear that he wants a deal that cuts the U.S. trade deficit— and brings manufacturing jobs back to the United States. Trump also threatened to withdraw from the South Korea-U.S. free-trade agreement (KORUS), citing unfair trade practices and a desire to bring home U.S. jobs.
At the same time, Trump is supporting the Reforming American Immigration for a Strong Economy Act (Raise Act), which would cut legal immigration by 50 percent. And he announced the end of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which could mean the deportation of about 690,000 “dreamers” — immigrants who came into the country illegally as children.
