U.S. Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross said this week that the best window to complete the renegotiations of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) is by early January. This would put the renegotiations well before Mexico’s general election and U.S. congressional elections in 2018, according to Reuters.
Ross, speaking this week at the Bipartisan Policy Center, a Washington, D.C. think tank, said completing the rengotiations by January was essential because Mexican elections could interfere with legislative approval of the agreement. “Their elections are mid-year. The closer you get to it the more complicated it would become, particularly in terms of getting Mexican congressional approval,” Ross said.
NAFTA negotiations cannot formally start until mid-August, when a consultation period with U.S. lawmakers, industry, and the public ends. Ross also said that the current “fast-track” negotiating authority in the U.S. Congress needs to be reconfirmed in July 2018 as the U.S. congressional mid-term elections in November 2018 loom.
