Freeland calls for 'flexibility' as NAFTA talks break off for the weekend


READ MORE

When it comes to delivering a new NAFTA deal, Canada’s foreign affairs minister says “we’re not there yet.”


“With goodwill and flexibility on all sides I know we can get there,” Chrystia Freeland told reporters at the Canadian Embassy in Washington on Friday when, after a tense week, negotiations on the North American Free Trade Agreement broke off for the weekend.


Freeland said Canada is making progress but “will only sign a new agreement if it benefits Canada and Canadians.”


United States Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer said he’ll pick up with Canada’s team on Wednesday in Washington. 


“We have also been negotiating with Canada throughout this year-long process. This week those meetings continued at all levels. The talks were constructive, and we made progress,” Lighthizer said in an emailed statement.


He said U.S. President Donald Trump has notified Congress that his government intends to sign a trade agreement “with Mexico — and Canada, if it is willing — 90 days from now.”


Senior U.S. officials, speaking to reporters on a background call, said the Trump administration is on pace to offer Congress a full text of the renegotiated deal within 30 days.


The United States, Canada and Mexico had been trying to come up with at least a preliminary agreement in principle by the end of Friday — a deadline selected by Trump.


U.S. President Donald Trump admitted making off-the-record comments about NAFTA negotiations after The Toronto Star reported he told Bloomberg News the U.S. would not make any compromises in a deal. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)


‘Canada knows where I stand’


The conclusion of talks and Trump’s letter to Congress capped off a rocky day of negotiations.


The Toronto Star reported Friday that Trump, in an interview with Bloomberg News, said the U.S. is unwilling to make concessions and that his position was “going to be so insulting they’re [Canada] not going to be able to make a deal.” CBC News has not independently verified the comments.


Trump admitted on Twitter that he made the comments to Bloomberg on Friday, claiming an understanding with the news agency that his comments were off the record was “blatantly violated.”


“Oh well, just more dishonest reporting. I am used to it. At least Canada knows where I stand!” he tweeted.





Sources say Canada confronted U.S. negotiators about Trump’s comments as talks between Freeland and Lighthizer got underway in Washington earlier in the day.


Asked about the report, Freeland insisted Canada won’t cave to any demand, and that the government will defend the national interest in any NAFTA deal.


Trump claims total control








In the remarks published by the Star, Trump said any possible NAFTA deal would be “totally on our terms.”


“Off the record, Canada’s working their ass off. And every time we have a problem with a point, I just put up a picture of a Chevrolet Impala,” he reportedly said.


The Impala is assembled at the General Motors plant in Oshawa, Ont.


Holding an event in that city today, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau repeated Freeland’s position when asked about Trump’s remarks.


“We’re going to remain constructive, positive, serious and creative about what we do around the negotiating table, in what we do in relation with the United States,” he said. “But we are also going to be unequivocal about always standing up for Canadians’ rights and Canadians’ interests.”


Sources tell CBC News that Chapter 19 of NAFTA, which contains a dispute-resolution process that Canada is determined to keep and the U.S. wants to scrap, is the most challenging area in the talks.


Trump announced Monday that he and outgoing Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto agreed on a new trade deal that he said could replace NAFTA. He has threatened to slap 25-per-cent tariffs on Canadian-built cars if there is no NAFTA deal.



Article source: http://www.francesoir.fr/actualites-monde/attentat-de-manhattan-le-suspect-inculpe-de-22-chefs-daccusation-0


Best Wordpress Plugin development company in India     Best Web development company in India

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Canadian expected to be aboard Russia's 1st manned space mission since rocket failure

READ MORE The first manned mission to the International Space Station since a Russian rocket failed to launch successfully earlier this month may take off on Dec. 3, space agency Roscosmos said on Wednesday. And the crew is expected to include Canadian astronaut David Saint-Jacques, Agence France-Press reported. A Russian cosmonaut and U.S. astronaut were forced to abort their mission on Oct. 11 and perform an emergency landing after a launch accident that Roscomos said was caused by a faulty sensor. The accident was the first serious launch problem experienced by a manned Soyuz space mission since 1983, when a crew narrowly escaped before a launch pad explosion. Sergei Krikalyov, a senior Roscosmos official, was quoted by state news agency Tass as saying the next manned launch had been planned for mid-December, but that Russia was trying to bring the date forward so that the ISS is not briefly left without a crew. “The industry is making significant efforts to move the launch t...
Read more

Getting the dope on pot stocks is becoming easier as media groups invest in content: Don Pittis

Image
READ MORE “What’s the buzz? Tell me what’s happening,” goes the ’70s rock anthem. Part of the catchiness of the lyric — from the rock musical Jesus Christ Superstar  — was that in that era the term “buzz” had developed a second spicy meaning. It described the high that people got from smoking cannabis. In the 1970s, the magazine High Times was a brand new title keeping an eye on the illegal but growing business of marijuana pricing and sales. It ran centrefolds of glistening pot plants and of an apartment filled to the windows with what the magazine insisted was an entire ton of cannabis. Now some of Canada’s most staid media voices are looking for ways to go toe to toe with High Times and its U.S. competitors, hoping to profit from Canada’s global head start in legal recreational cannabis. But when it comes to making a killing from spreading the buzz on the cannabis biz, to q...
Read more

Tense standoff ends as RCMP arrest 4th suspect in Mountie shooting

Image
READ MORE Four suspects are in control in the western Manitoba sharpened of a Mountie who is recuperating in sanatorium in Winnipeg. The harmed officer is 42-year-old Cpl. Graeme Kingdon, of Erickson, Man., who is married and has two children, according to a mayor of Erickson and members of his extended family. He is in fast condition, military say. RCMP Cpl. Graeme Kingdon, who was shot Wednesday night, is reported to be in fast condition in a Winnipeg hospital. (Graeme Kingdon/Facebook) The fourth think in a sharpened was arrested after an hours-long deadlock Thursday with RCMP in Neepawa, that is about 50 kilometres from Onanole, where the officer was shot Wednesday night after responding to a news about a break-in. Dozens of military officers, including members of the RCMP tactical unit, had surrounded a chateau in Neepawa around 11:45 a.m. CT on Thursday. The arrest happened only before 3 p.m. when mem...
Read more