White House Sends NAFTA Redo Notification Letter to Congress

Farm Journals Ag Web Dot Com reports that the Trump administration has officially laid out its strategies to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico in a letter delivered today to Congress. The administration’s main goal is to update the Clinton-era trade deal. U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer recently wrapped up two days of meetings with both the Senate Finance and House Ways and Means Committees, as well as special trade advisory groups from both chambers. By law, those meetings had to take place before the letter could be sent.  The letter was addressed to Chuck Schumer, Orrin Hatch, Paul Ryan, and Nancy Pelosi. In the letter, Lighthizer stressed the need to modernize the agreement. “As I said three days ago when I was sworn in, I believe the President’s leadership on trade will permanently reverse the dangerous trajectory of American trade,” he says. Lighthizer singled out digital trade, which was in its infancy when the original agreement was negotiated, as one of the details needing to be upgraded. Lighthizer added that the administration intends to begin negotiations as soon as possible, but no sooner than 90 days from today.