Canada Tells U.S., Mexico It Wants Trade Deal Renewed

Canada has officially told the U.S. and Mexico it was the free trade deal between the three countries renewed when it comes up for review on July 1.

After meeting with U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greet, Trade Minister Dominic LeBlanc said he presented proposals reponding to "long-standing issues the U.S. has raised with us," but wouldn't discuss any specifics.

"The road to conclusions in these conversations is sometimes not a straight line. You can suddenly hit clear-air turbulence when you don't expect it," LeBlanc told the CBC. "Sometimes you can have a very smooth ride with no turbulence. So I remain optimistic that we'll focus on the latter."

There's no reason to think Canada's going to have a smooth ride toward renewal. Just last week Greer said Canada is just going to have to live with tariffs, and in other "signal" the Trump Administration has said it wants at least 50% of vehicle content to be made in the U.S. to qualify for tariff-free access to the U.S. market, the Wall Street Journal has reported.