Canada Foreign Affairs Minister to Visit Washington to Discuss NAFTA

Canada's Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland announced that she will meet with U.S. Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross on Tuesday to discuss the renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).The visit of the Canadian Foreign Minister, who is in charge of the NAFTA renegotiation case, comes to the U.S. after the Senate last week confirmed Robert Lighthizer as President Trump's U.S. Trade Representative.The Canadian Minister arrived in Washington Monday for a two-day visit, during which she will also meet her American counterpart Rex Tillerson, Radio Sawa reported.Freeland will be accompanied by Canadian Defense Minister Harjit Sajjan, who will meet his U.S. counterpart James Mattis. These meetings come ahead of a NATO countries' meeting scheduled for the end of May in Brussels, which will be followed by a summit of the Group of Seven (G7) industrialized countries in Italy.President Donald Trump agreed at the end of April to renegotiate NAFTA, which has been in effect since 1994. However, the U.S. government has yet to formally inform Congress of its intention to renegotiate this agreement, and if doing so, U.S. lawmakers will have 90 days to consider the government's request and then inform the Canadian and Mexican sides.