USTR Wants Data on Expanding NAFTA Agriculture Tariff Cuts

Shortly after informing Congress that he will renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer requested a new investigation examining what would happen if the agreement were changed to further liberalize trade in certain agricultural goods.Meanwhile, Lighthizer over the weekend was in Hanoi, Vietnam. "Our view as an administration is that we can take actions to stop unfair trade in the U.S. market. There are also a lot of, an enormous amount of non-economic capacity around the world and barriers to trade," he said at the APEC press conference. "The question again is, what steps can be taken to really lead to free trade and to the extent those steps are confused with protectionism we find that unfortunate.""Our view is we want free trade, we want fair trade,” Lighthizer said. “We want a system that leads to greater market efficiencies throughout the world," he added. "That's really the underlying objective of organizations like this and the WTO and others. It's in all of our interests to get to that end. The question is what do you do to get there? For us, it's to defend against unfair trade in our market."Lighthizer held formal bilateral meetings with his counterparts from Canada, Japan, Mexico, Vietnam, China and Australia.