{"id":176538,"date":"2018-08-13T23:10:37","date_gmt":"2018-08-14T03:10:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=176538"},"modified":"2018-08-13T23:10:37","modified_gmt":"2018-08-14T03:10:37","slug":"trump-cant-reach-nafta-deal-without-canada-quebec-chief-negotiator","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2018\/08\/13\/trump-cant-reach-nafta-deal-without-canada-quebec-chief-negotiator\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump can’t reach NAFTA deal without Canada: Quebec chief negotiator"},"content":{"rendered":"
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FILE: Raymond Bachand (middle) announcing his candidacy for the leadership of the Liberal Party of Quebec in 2012. (Photo By Poupig – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

STOWE, Vt. \u2014 The Trump administration doesn’t have the legal authority to sideswipe Canada and sign a bilateral trade deal with Mexico,\u00a0Quebec’s chief NAFTA negotiator said Monday.<\/p>\n

Raymond Bachand, an ex-Quebec\u00a0finance minister, said “there is no worry whatsoever” the current one-on-one talks between the United States and Mexico will end in a trade deal signed without Canada.<\/p>\n

Bilateral NAFTA negotiations between the two countries have been building momentum in recent weeks, while Canada has yet to return to the table this summer.<\/p>\n

U.S. President Donald Trump recently stated a deal with Mexico “is coming along nicely” and “Canada must wait.”<\/p>\n

The president has also said he would be interested in signing separate deals with both countries.<\/p>\n

Even if Trump really wanted that, Bachand said, he couldn’t get it.<\/p>\n

“If the U.S. wanted a bilateral deal \u2014 and they don’t, they’ve repeated often they want a trilateral deal \u2014 they don’t have legal authority.<\/p>\n

“They have the authority from Congress to negotiate a trilateral NAFTA deal in a fast-track way \u2014 meaning Congress votes yes or no on the final deal once it’s been reached. They don’t have that (fast-track) authority for a bilateral deal.”<\/p>\n

Bachand made the comments in Stowe, Vt., during the two-day annual conference between governors of New England states and the premiers of\u00a0Quebec\u00a0and the eastern Canadian provinces.<\/p>\n

Not a single U.S. governor or senator has asked to pull their country out of NAFTA, Bachand said, which is Canada’s true trump card in the negotiations, he added.<\/p>\n

“So all the so-called modernization attempts the president wants with NAFTA, there is a kind of red line,” Bachand said. “NAFTA will continue because the power in the U.S. Senate is very strong in commercial decisions, and governors also have a big influence.”<\/p>\n

On Sunday, Vermont Gov. Phil Scott and\u00a0Quebec\u00a0Premier Philippe Couillard signed a joint declaration on economic co-operation, despite the trade tensions between the two countries.<\/p>\n

Scott said the agreement “acknowledges our intertwined economies and solidifies our commitment to building cross-border trade.”<\/p>\n

Couillard said Monday one of the ways a new NAFTA deal will be reached is by convincing Americans who live outside the states that border Canada of how critical trade is for the economies of both countries.<\/p>\n

Quebec’s premier said he had breakfast with the eastern premiers and New England governors Monday and they “almost exclusively” talked about NAFTA.<\/p>\n

“The border states understand well the level of integration of our economies,” he said. “It’s the rest of the country and the White House we have to work on.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

STOWE, Vt. \u2014 The Trump administration doesn’t have the legal authority to sideswipe Canada and sign a bilateral trade deal …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":176550,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-176538","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news-ca","category-news","mauthors-giuseppe-valiante","mauthors-the-canadian-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176538","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=176538"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176538\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/176550"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=176538"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=176538"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=176538"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}