The Mexican Ambassador to
Washington tells Bloomberg that the U.S., Canada, and Mexico have general
agreement on 40 percent of the topics being renegotiated in the NAFTA talks.
Geronimo Gutierrez says Mexico may also be willing to accept an increase in the
minimum regional content for automobiles traded under the deal. Gutierrez says
Mexico is focusing on increasing employment, something that’s also important to
the U.S. However, he also told Bloomberg that Mexico will walk away from the
bargaining table if President Trump gives notice of his intention to withdraw
from NAFTA. The U.S. demand for more North American content, specifically
American content, in vehicles, is one of the most contentious issues to this
point. Negotiators have largely avoided this and other contentious issues like
government procurement, which means the negotiations in Canada could be very
important to the final outcome. The talks in Canada are scheduled to run from
January 23 through January 28. The Mexican Economy Minister also says that
negotiations are almost complete on 10 of the 20 chapters in NAFTA.
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