OTTAWA — Late January isn’t the best time for a trip to Canada, but a group of U.S. farmers, including one from southern Texas, travelled to Montreal Jan. 26 to defend the North American Free Trade Agreement. The farmers and most U.S. agricultural groups are terrified that President Donald Trump will rip up the trade […] Read more
NAFTA
U.S. could be big loser if NAFTA dies
Supply management accused of refusing to make changes
OTTAWA — As a university professor, Bruno Larue is used to handing out grades. Larue, an agricultural economist at Laval University, normally gives them out to students, but on occasion he also rates organizations and institutions. In the case of Canada’s supply management system, Larue gives it an A+ — for preserving its structure and […] Read more
Canada PM: doesn’t think Trump will pull U.S. out of NAFTA
OTTAWA (Reuters) – Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said in an interview he does not think U.S. President Donald Trump will pull out of NAFTA, despite differences over how to update the trade pact, the Canadian Broadcasting Corp said on Wednesday. Trudeau’s comments were among the most positive made by any Canadian official since talks […] Read more
NAFTA round ends; Canada, U.S. share different perspectives
The tone was friendlier and U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer almost chuckled, but it’s clear that Canada and the United States still have different perspectives on the North American Free Trade Agreement. At a press conference in Montreal this morning, Lighthizer and federal Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland politely shared their thoughts on the state […] Read more
American farmer supports NAFTA free trade
OTTAWA – Humans, sometimes, prefer to see the world as glass half-full. For Scott Frazier, a farmer and rancher from Texas, that tendency explains a lot about the free trade debate in the U.S. “Like everything, everyone wants to cry wolf. But no one wants to pat somebody on the back for the good things…. […] Read more
Canada to unveil proposals to head off NAFTA clash over autos
The sixth and penultimate round of negotiations opened in in Montreal on Tuesday
MONTREAL, Jan 24 (Reuters) – Canadian negotiators at the NAFTA talks will unveil on Wednesday ideas to address U.S. demands for higher North American content in autos, a contentious issue that is threatening the effort to modernize the 1994 trade deal, three well-placed sources said. The sixth and penultimate round of negotiations to update the […] Read more
Farmers: If you love TPP, get out and get loud
Because the opponents are likely to declare holy war on it
There’s no way the government would back out of its newly announced support for the re-engineered Trans Pacific Partnership, right? No way at all! That’d be humiliating. That’d be like announcing major small business tax changes and then have to painfully back out of them in the face of outrage and denunciation . . . […] Read more
Ukraine oilseed exports rise 48 pct so far in 2017/18
KIEV, (Reuters) – Ukraine has boosted its exports of oilseeds by 48 percent to 3.67 million tonnes so far this season thanks to bumper rapeseed sales, its state service for food safety said on Wednesday. Rapeseed exports totalled 2 million tonnes so far in 2017/18 compared with 900,000 tonnes in the same period in 2016/17, […] Read more
American railways ask NAFTA members to stick with deal
Another U.S. industry is standing up for the North American Free Trade Agreement — America’s railways. In an op-ed published last week, the Association of American Railroads argued that abandoning NAFTA would be a mistake and that Canada, Mexico and the United States should be looking for ways to improve the trade deal. “The conversation […] Read more
MacAulay talks up NAFTA at U.S. farm group meeting
Federal agriculture minister Lawrence MacAulay pressed upon members of the American Farm Bureau Federation of the need to retain the North American Free Trade Agreement at the bureau’s annual meeting earlier this week. He found a like-minded audience. Speaking to Canadian reporters by conference call a day after his speech in Nashville, and hours before […] Read more
