NAFTA now under fire from top Mexican officials also

MEXICO CITY — Mexico will only remain within the North American Free Trade Agreement if the renegotiated treaty is good for the country, Foreign Minister Luis Videgaray said on Tuesday Oct. 10, as trade negotiators gathered in Washington for talks.

The talks to update the 23-year-old NAFTA pact have turned increasingly acrimonious, with Mexico and business groups warning that several U.S. proposals would limit trade.

Videgaray said Mexico must be ready for the “different scenarios” that the talks could produce. U.S. President Donald Trump was quoted on Tuesday as saying he believed NAFTA should be terminated, Reuters reported.

Meanwhile, as negotiators resume talks to overhaul Nafta in Washington on Wednesday Oct. 11, American business leaders are in Mexico City meeting with counterparts from the nation’s private sector and allies in government to discuss ways to defend the deal.

The meeting at the Four Seasons Hotel includes a conversation between executives and Economy Minister Ildefonso Guajardo, who oversees Mexico’s negotiating team, according to an agenda obtained by Bloomberg News. Guajardo’s office confirmed his participation. Foreign Minister Luis Videgaray and Finance Minister Jose Antonio Meade will also address the gathering, according to the schedule for the closed-door summit.

Led by executives from FedEx and Tenaris, more than 100 business and government officials attended the U.S.-Mexico CEO Dialogue in December, shortly after Donald Trump’s election, the last time the event was held in Mexico. U.S. Chamber of Commerce head Tom Donohue told attendees at that session that the biggest American business lobbying organization aimed to keep Trump from tearing up Nafta, according to three people with direct knowledge of the meeting. Donohue spoke at an American Chamber of Commerce event in Mexico City on Tuesday morning before a dinner kicking off the CEO event that night.

Sources: reuters.com; bloomberg.com

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