President Trump has announced a break-through in trade negotiations with Mexico.
“Our farmers are going to be so happy,” Trump said late this morning. “You know, my farmers, the farmers have stuck with me when I said we were going to do this and Mexico’s promised to start purchasing as much farm product as they can.”
Trump is calling this new accord the U.S.-Mexico Trade Agreement and Trump has also announced he will terminate the North American Trade Agreement.
“We’ll get rid of the name NAFTA. It has a bad connotation because the United States was hurt really badly by NAFTA for many years,” Trump said. “And now it’s a really good deal for both countries.”
Hog futures went up after reports early this morning suggested a deal with Mexico was imminent. Mexico has been the number one foreign market for U.S. pork products, but as trade negotiations lagged, Mexico imposed tariffs on U.S. pork as well as cheese in June.
Representatives from the U.S., Mexico and Canada began renegotiating the terms of the North American Free Trade Agreement in August of last year, but for about a month the talks have involved only the U.S. and Mexico.
“A lot of people thought this was not a doable transaction,” Trump said as he sat at his desk in the Oval Office. “It’s going to be great for our people.”
The president said negotiations with Canada will start “fairly soon.”
“You know they have tariffs of almost 300 percent on some of our dairy products, so we can’t have that,” Trump said. “We’re not going to stand for that.”
Canada is the state of Iowa’s number one trading partner, nearly double the market Mexico has been for Iowa exports.
The trade pact Trump has announced with Mexico must be ratified by congress. Trump indicated if a deal is reached with Canada, it might be added to this agreement with Mexico or it might be a separate, stand-alone deal.