U.S. and Canadian officials were nearing a deal late Sunday on rewriting the North American Free Trade Agreement that would resolve thorny disputes involving the car industry and Canadian tariffs on U.S. dairy products, according to people familiar with the discussions.
Trump administration officials told stakeholders over the weekend they were on a path toward reaching their goal of a draft of a trilateral agreement between the two countries and Mexico. They were racing a U.S.-imposed midnight deadline for the talks with Canada.
After a month of difficult negotiations between Washington and Ottawa — talks that seemed to break down altogether last week — there now appears to be a broad agreement by the top political leaders in both countries to pull out the stops and finalize an accord, these people said. Negotiators cautioned that it wasn’t clear there would be enough time to close the gaps by the end of the day.
“There is lots of progress but we are not there yet,” Canada’s ambassador to the U.S., David MacNaughton, told reporters outside the prime minister’s offices in Ottawa late Sunday afternoon, where senior officials were gathered throughout the day. “I am cautiously optimistic.”
An expanded version of this report appears on WSJ.com.
Also popular on WSJ.com:
Elon Musk to step down as Tesla chairman, remain CEO.
New York towns gearing up to fight IRS ruling on local taxes.
