The US and Canada have reached a deal on an updated North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), according to officials briefed on the negotiations.
President Donald Trump reportedly accepted the new deal while Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau held a late-night meeting with his Cabinet in Ottawa.
More details regarding the agreement between the US, Canada and Mexico are expected to be revealed when the White House makes a formal announcement, which will likely occur in the next few hours.
Initial reports indicate that the revised agreement will allow the US greater access to Canada’s dairy market and addresses Canadian concerns about potential auto tariffs, sources told CNN.
The deal comes after a week of intense negotiations between US and Canadian officials working under a self-imposed deadline of Sunday night.
US President Donald Trump and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau reportedly reached a deal on a revised North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) late Sunday evening, according to officials briefed on the negotiations. The leaders are pictured together in June
Trudeau declined to comment to reporters as he arrived at his office Sunday night ahead of the unusual 10pm meeting with his ministers, which was confirmed by two senior government officials.
One of the officials – both of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to speak publicly – said the discussions between Canada and the US were ongoing, but that progress was being made.
Canada’s ambassador to Washington, David MacNaughton, also said Sunday evening that the two countries had made a lot of progress, but there was no deal yet as there were a couple of tough issues left to resolve.
He said he wasn’t sure if they would reach an agreement by Monday, but that he was cautiously optimistic.
‘Lots of progress, but we’re not there yet,’ MacNaughton told reporters. ‘It’s never done until it’s done.’
Canadian Minister of Foreign Affairs Chrystia Freeland and Gerald Butts, senior political advisor to Trudeau, are pictured walking in the loading dock of the Office of the Prime Minister and Privy Council in Ottawa on Sunday amid reports of a last-minute Cabinet meeting
Canadian Agriculture and Agri-Food Minister Lawrence MacAulay (left) and Finance Minister Bill Morneau (right) arrive for the emergency cabinet meeting on the NAFTA negotiations
The US and Canada were under pressure to reach a deal by the end of the day Sunday, when the US must make public the full text of the agreement with Mexico.
Canada, the United States’ No 2 trading partner, was left out when the U.S. and Mexico reached an agreement last month to revamp NAFTA.
President Donald Trump has said he wants to go ahead with a revamped NAFTA – with or without Canada. It was unclear, however, whether Trump had authority from Congress to pursue a revamped NAFTA with only Mexico, and some lawmakers said they wouldn’t go along with a deal that left out Canada.
Earlier, White House trade adviser Peter Navarro said on Fox News Channel’s ‘Sunday Morning Futures’ that by Monday morning ‘you will have some news one way or another that will … be big and perhaps market-moving.’
Among other things, the negotiators battled over Canada’s high dairy tariffs. Canada also wanted to keep a NAFTA dispute-resolution process that the US wanted to jettison.
Daniel Ujczo, a trade attorney with the Dickinson Wright law firm who has followed the talks closely, said he expects the US to get more access to the Canadian dairy market.
The two countries are also working on an agreement that would shield Canada if Trump goes ahead with his threat to tax imported cars, truck and auto parts.
Canada could be exempted from the auto tariffs if it agrees to limits on its auto exports to the United States, Ujczo said.
US-Canada talks bogged down earlier this month, and most trade analysts expected the September 30 deadline to come and go without Canada being reinstated.
They suspected that Canada, which had said it wasn’t bound by US deadlines, was delaying the talks until after provincial elections Monday in Quebec, where support for Canadian dairy tariffs runs high.