WASHINGTON, Aug. 16 -- The United States, Canada and Mexico on Wednesday kicked off here the first round of renegotiations on the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) amid widespread uncertainty and anxiety over the future of the decades-old trilateral trade deal.
"We all agree that NAFTA needs updating. This is a 23-year-old agreement and our economies are very different than they were in the 1990s," U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) Robert Lighthizer said in his opening remarks for the inaugural round of NAFTA talks, which will last until Sunday in Washington D.C.
"We need to modernize or create provisions which protect digital trade and service trade, e-commerce, update customs procedures, protect intellectual property, improving energy provisions, enhance transparency rules and promote science-based agricultural trade," Lighthizer said.
He hoped that the three countries could develop model provisions in each of these areas that can be used for years ahead and have the flexibility to adapt to future innovations.
Lighthizer also claimed that NAFTA "has fundamentally failed many, many Americans", and the United States "cannot ignore the huge trade deficits, the lost manufacturing jobs, the businesses that have closed or moved" because of incentives in the current agreement.
The top U.S. trade official said President Donald Trump, who has threatened to quit NAFTA, was not interested in "a mere tweaking of a few provisions and a couple of updated chapters," and the United States would seek "major improvement" of the agreement.
"We need to assure that huge trade deficits do not continue and we have balance and reciprocity. This should be periodically reviewed," Lighthizer said.
In July, the USTR's office for the first time included deficit reduction as a specific objective for the NAFTA negotiations, reflecting the Trump administration's determination to address the issue.
However, Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland dismissed the use of trade deficits as indicators of the success of a trade agreement.
"Canada doesn't view trade surpluses or deficits as a primary measure of whether a trading relationship works," Freeland said in her opening remarks, adding current trade between the U.S. and Canada is "balanced and mutually beneficial."
Lighthizer said the U.S. would also seek to tighten the rules of origin for automobiles and auto parts by requiring a higher NAFTA content and "substantial U.S. content" .
The existing rules of origin allows the autos with a regional value content of 62.5 percent or higher to qualify for shipping them duty-free in North America. That's already the highest among the 12 free trade agreements that the U.S. currently has, according to Matt Blunt, head of American Automotive Policy Council.
Blunt said the current threshold for local content requirement strikes the right balance, warning that tightening the rules of origin in NAFTA could be disruptive and hurt the competitiveness of automakers in U.S., Canada and Mexico.
Mexico's Economy Minister Ildefonso Guajardo, in his opening remarks, said objectives for NAFTA renegotiations should be to "have more trade" and "do no harm."
"The issue is not tearing apart what has worked, but rather how we can make the agreement work better," Guajardo said, adding negotiators have to work with all participants for successfully reaching a deal.
Jeffrey Schott, a trade expert and senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, a Washington-D.C. based think tank, said many U.S. lawmakers are also very reluctant to see major changes to NAFTA because of potential losses or uncertainty over the renegotiations.
"If you ask many of the members, they will say that their constituents have benefited from the NAFTA and they're very reluctant to change what is going on now in part because they know the potential losses," Schott told Xinhua.
"If they don't know what the potential losses are, they are concerned that there will be increased uncertainty and that would be a negative factor for investment," he said.
Schott expected that negotiators from the U.S., Canada and Mexico would table negotiating proposals for a variety of different issues at this week's round of talks.
"I think there will be a lot of proposals put on the table, detailed texts on a variety of different issues, and a lot of time will be needed just to explain what each country wants to see in this modernization of the NAFTA," he said.
It's still early to say whether the three countries would reach an upgraded trilateral trade deal or the negotiations could break down.
While every member has the option to withdraw from NAFTA six months after it provides the written notice to the other parties, Schott warned the costs of breaking up would be very high "because the economic disruptions to all three economies would be very severe."
"If the U.S. withdrew it, it would cause significant pain for many U.S. exporters including many farmers that rely on the Mexican market for a large share of their crop sales," he said.
工作很不爽?该这样向老板吐槽
中国消费者在双十一上演大血拼
我国快递集中进行整顿 将实名登记
夫妻治疗是否有效?
直击巴黎枪击爆炸事件
有仇必报!法国战机空袭IS大本营掷20枚炸弹
不想上班怎么破?研究称病假肚子痛最管用
胡适说:差不多先生,还活着?!
撕逼有理!研究称女人30岁前嫉妒心最强
单身狗的双11为何全民都在买买买
女性朋友注意! 留胡子的男性更易有外遇
英国人说760万就能买到幸福
海外商家加入中国双11促销大战
工作漫漫长,7种方法把时间减一半
如何爱惜好你的毛衣?
如何用高跟鞋优雅地反抗性侵
理想公司的多个职位都喜欢,怎么选?
《好汉两个半》男星染艾滋 曾砸钱封口
3D打印轮椅助无腿小狗行走
全球城市大调查:10岁小孩都在学些啥?
爆料:多名一线女星借腹生子并假装怀孕
别人想让你相信的荒谬之事
让你和爱人白头偕老的20条箴言
和妹子说晚安的五种正确姿势
美国晚餐百年进化史3分钟视频 天朝人看哭了
你是拒绝长大的“彼得·潘一代吗”?
朝九晚五真的是工作的意义吗
科学揭示为何女性喜欢坏男孩
癌症少年励志感人演讲:把握现今放手追梦
2017世界大学排行,让国人出乎意料
不限 |
英语教案 |
英语课件 |
英语试题 |
不限 |
不限 |
上册 |
下册 |
不限 |