NAFTA Renegotiation Roundup

Round 3 of the NAFTA renegotiation wrapped up last Wednesday. Round 4 is scheduled for October 11-15 in the Washington, DC area. How have things been going so far?Here ’s one assessment:The United States, Canada and Mexico said at the end of a five-day session in Ottawa there had been progress made in the talks but acknowledged that much work remained to conclude the negotiations by the end of the year.The next round might be a big one.Inside US Tradenotes that “controversial ideas for investor-state dispute settlement and a sunset clause tied to the trade deficit” will be “finalized and proposed at the fourth round.”The original plan was to do the renegotiation over 7 rounds in total, concluding this year. However, the idea of the three NAFTA countries reaching an agreement by the end of the year was always a bit unrealistic and now seems even more so. If all goes perfectly, perhaps they could do it by the spring or summer of next year, but it won’t be easy.On October 26, we will have a full day conference here at Cato talking about a wide range of issues in the negotiations. You can registerhere. The full details are at the link, but here ’s a brief rundown.We ’ll start with a panel made up of some of the original negotiators to explain why we had a NAFTA in the first place. What was the pre-NAFTA situation, and how did NAFTA improve things? We’ll then have a discussion panel that delves into the various criticisms of NAFTA over the years. Next, we’ ll ...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - Category: American Health Authors: Source Type: blogs