Mexico FM calls latest U.S. NAFTA proposal 'redundant'

MEXICO CITY – 16 September 2017: Mexico’s foreign minister on Friday said a U.S. plan to add a five-year sunset provision to the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was redundant, since the pact’s members can already trigger a renegotiation or leave it at any time.

U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said on Thursday that the United States was seeking to add a five-year sunset provision to NAFTA to provide a regular, “systematic re-examination” of the trade pact.

Such a clause means NAFTA would automatically end after five years unless renewed.

Mexico’s Foreign Minister Luis Videgaray said neither his country nor Canada had formally received such a proposal, ahead of a third round of talks to renegotiate NAFTA in Ottawa on Sept. 23-27.

“There is no strict need to have this exit mechanism since the treaty already has a much more flexible exit mechanism,” Videgaray said in an interview with Reuters.

“It seems redundant, or strange to add a date of every five years.”

At an event on Thursday, Ross said a sunset provision was needed because forecasts for U.S. export and job growth when NAFTA took effect in 1994 were “wildly optimistic” and failed to live up to expectations.

Videgaray earlier said on Friday that the White House had denied that U.S. President Donald Trump’s Chief of Staff John Kelly had said Mexico was on the “verge of collapse”, referring to a U.S. media report earlier this week.

“We have spoken to the White House, and they have confirmed General Kelly did not make at any moment comments of that nature,” Videgaray said in response to a question about a report that appeared in the New York Times on Thursday.

“It would be clearly contrary to everything that we have heard and know of General Kelly in these past months,” he added.