Regardless of persisting differences, Canada and the US neighbors took a step closer to free trade. There has been progress, said Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau following a meeting with US President Donald Trump yesterday in Washington.
Among other things, facilities for border traffic between the two countries should be enforced, including cross-border freight transport. Both countries also wanted to cooperate more closely in securing important minerals, including military ones. Trudeau wants to continue talks next week at the G20 summit in Osaka, Japan.
Resistance announced by Democrats
The new North American Free Trade Agreement also appears to be progressing, despite considerable tensions between the three countries involved: the United States, Mexico and Canada. Mexico was the first country to ratify the new United States-Mexico-Canada-Agreement (USMCA) agreement, one of the largest of its kind in the world, on Wednesday.
Trump said he hopes ratification in the US Parliament will be swift. „I think Nancy Pelosi will do the right thing,“ Trump said of the Democrats, looking at the House Speaker. Trump’s political opponent has the majority in the Chamber, Pelosi had repeatedly announced resistance. Canada also has yet to ratify the agreement.
The new agreement follows the decade-old NAFTA Free Trade Pact. This had been rejected by Trump because he had included too many disadvantages for the US, especially in agriculture and the auto industry. Trump had enforced the renegotiation, which was on the verge of failure several times.
