Canadian PM Justin Trudeau turned down bilateral deals with the US

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau turned down the United States’ (US) proposal to scrap the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and signed a bilateral trade pact on Wednesday.

Sputnik quoted Trudeau saying, “We have, on various occasions, heard the president speak about his interest or his musings about a bilateral deal instead of the trilateral NAFTA that we have”.
Canada’s Trade Minister Francois Philippe Champagne called the recently introduced US tariffs on steel and aluminium “an attack on the world economic order.”

In April, Trudeau praised the United States, Canada and Mexico for handling the NAFTA in a significant manner.

US President Donald Trump would have dropped the newly-imposed 25 per cent tariffs on the aluminium and steel products if the revised NAFTA deal gets signed.

The revised NAFTA deal is set to impact the intellectual property of the US and the trade exports between US and Mexico among other trade policies.

Donald Trump’s economic adviser said that the U.S. has asked Canada to hold one-on-one North American Free Trade Agreement negotiations as trilateral talks sputter but Canada wants to remain focused on a trilateral agreement.

Andrew Leslie, the parliamentary secretary to the foreign affairs minister in charge of Canada-U.S. relations said, “As Canada has maintained right from the beginning, we believe in a trilateral NAFTA, we believe that together it’s been a win-win-win for our three economies and all three nations have prospered”.

NAFTA is an agreement signed by Canada, Mexico, and the United States, creating a trilateral trade bloc in North America, which came into force on January 1, 1994.

Image Source – The daily wire