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Robert Lighthizer, Trump's trade chief, tells Senate finance committee that the new NAFTA is "the best trade agreement we've ever negotiated" and he wants to get it to Congress for ratification "as soon as we can." Mid-April is the target date for the deal to be sent to Congress
No one will put a firm timeline on actual passage. But I'm told getting the new NAFTA through Congress before the August recess is overly ambitious. So it could be a while
Rob Portman, an Ohio Republican senator, says he's worried about "what I'm hearing from the Canadians and Mexicans on steel and aluminium" tariffs
Lighthizer says the Trump administration is negotiating on steel and aluminium tariffs with Canada and Mexico: "We're in discussions with them and trying to find a way out of that dilemma for them and for us"
Lighthizer and Portman were referring to this: Canada has threatened it will not ratify the new NAFTA/USMCA until the U.S. lifts tariffs. I had some intel last month on what a steel/aluminium deal would likely look like theglobeandmail.com/business/artic…
"We have to have a solution with Canada and Mexico that protects the President's basic program," Lighthizer says on tariffs. "There's a sweet spot there that allows us to satisfy Canada and Mexico ... I have ongoing negotiations with both of them on this subject"
Lighthizer hints that Canada and Mexico will have to agree to some sort of managed trade, such as quotas, on steel and aluminium to get tariffs lifted. He says he doesn't know how much longer negotiations will take
Lighthizer says tariffs "are working," which is dubious. U.S. industries getting hammered by the tariffs are much larger than the actual steel/aluminium industries themselves. Also, not clear the tariffs are doing much to help the steel industry anyway theglobeandmail.com/business/artic…
Maybe not surprisingly, a few Republican senators were concerned about tariffs on Canada and Mexico, and pushing Lighthizer on lifting them. But they weren't particularly turning up the pressure
