Canada Foreign Affairs Minister Freeland Sets NAFTA Priorities

By Yali N'Diaye

     WASHINGTON (MNI) - After Mexico and the U.S., Canada Foreign Affairs

Minister Chrystia Freeland offered clearer guidance Monday as to Canada's

objectives ahead of NAFTA's negotiations aiming at modernizing the 23-year old

treaty.

     Through a list of six key objectives, Freeland aims at making NAFTA "more

progressive" through stronger labor and environmental provisions, while also

cutting red tape for people and businesses and liberalizing government

procurement.

     Canada will also seek the creation of a chapter on gender rights and one on

Indegenous people.

     Freelance also wants to preserve some elements such as Canada's system of

supply management.

     Canada will also seek to draw on some of the outcomes of the Comprehensive

Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) reached with Europe, which Freeland

qualified as the "most progressive trade deal in history."

     Overall, she said, free trade without equitable domestic policy won't work.

     A red line for Canada is the need to maintain a dispute settlement system

that has often settled in favor of Canada.

     "Just as good fences make good neighbors, strong dispute settlement systems

make good trading partners," Freeland said, adding her negotiating team will be

as "resolute" as a previous team had been in 1987 by walking out when the U.S.

refused to "agree to binding binational review of anti-dumping and

countervailing duties."

     While Freeland said she was "deeply optimistic" about the outcome of the

negotiations, there will be unsettling times during the process.

     Reacting to the speech, TD Senior Economist Brian DePratto said in a

commentary that "Canada will have to overcome the U.S. desire for asymmetric

government procurement provisions, and Canada's supply management system was

both targeted in the U.S. objectives and a target of President Trump's ire

earlier in the year."

     "That said, CETA provides a good starting point on both these issues, and

included some concessions from Canada related to supply managed industries," he

added.

     The negotiations will start on Wednesday in Washington, DC.

--MNI Ottawa Bureau; +1 613 869-0916; email: yali.ndiaye@marketnews.com

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