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Bloomberg
President Donald Trump, speaking on Tuesday night in Arizona near the Mexican border, said it looks inevitable the US will pull out of the North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta). It’s a now familiar threat — but no less concerning given the US just this week wrapped up the first round of negotiations with Mexico and Canada to revise the trade agreement by early next year.
Trump’s comment that “we’ll end up probably terminating Nafta at some point†may add to a lurking fear that he won’t have the patience to see the process through. “The danger is that the president either with a very short fuse or his ‘my way or the highway approachâ€â€˜ will
torpedo the talks, Arturo Sarukhan, a former Mexican ambassador to the US, said on the sidelines of Nafta talks in Washington. To be sure, it could be a scare tactic. Trump backed down from an earlier threat to scrap the pact after seeing a map of states with Nafta-dependent economies that helped vote him in office.
Mexico could have the most to lose if the pact unspools, as the country has been Trump’s prime target.