The Trump administration on Wednesday declined to renew the trade deal President Trump negotiated with Canada and Mexico in his first term, a pact that he later came to criticize.
The decision, though expected, was an important symbolic move for a trade deal the United States is currently trying to renegotiate. The move started a decade-long clock to the deal’s expiration, unless the three countries unanimously decide to renew it.
The text of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement required the three countries to jointly meet to review the agreement six years after it took effect, on July 1, 2020. All three countries were required to say in writing whether they wanted to extend the pact for another 16 years.
Canada and Mexico said last month that they wanted to extend the agreement. But Jamieson Greer, the U.S. trade representative, said on Wednesday that the Trump administration was not ready to renew the pact wholesale. The United States would continue to engage with Mexico and Canada “to address the agreement’s shortcomings and our trade deficits with these countries,” he said, adding that the agreement would remain in force until those issues were resolved or the deal was terminated.
“We think there are substantial issues,” Mr. Greer said in an interview with Bloomberg on Wednesday morning.
Mr. Trump has repeatedly suggested that he might pull out of the deal, raising anxiety among the United States’ neighbors. While the deal has many critics, industries like autos and agriculture are tightly integrated across the continent because of the pact. Its end, experts say, would be disruptive for both workers and businesses.
