U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer said he wants to reach a deal in coming weeks to revamp the North American Free Trade Agreement, adding a sense of urgency to trilateral negotiations that have run for over eight months.
Lighthizer is scheduled to meet with his Mexican and Canadian counterparts on Monday after he returns from a trip to China. The three have been holding regular talks since August, and last week gathered in Washington for several days of negotiations. While Canada's government highlighted a series of major sticking points that still remain in a call with stakeholders Tuesday, Lighthizer struck an upbeat tone.
That's because by law it could take the House and Senate months to ratify any changes to NAFTA. The U.S. holds congressional elections in November and a new Congress starts up in January. Waiting until then "changes the whole way you have to kind of construct the deal," he said.
Federal Trade Minister Chrystia Freeland met Wednesday with the head of Wallonia in an effort to save a trade deal with the European Union that could collapse if the small Belgium region does not support it by Friday.
A spokeswoman for Freeland says she met with Wallonia President Paul Magnette, who earlier Wednesday said his region could not sign on to the deal by Friday, which has been set as a deadline to get the last of the 28 EU nations on board.
Anne-Louise Chauvette says the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement, also known as CETA, is a priority for the federal government and it is working hard with its European partners so that it can be approved and implemented next year.
The Wallonia vote has created headaches for Belgium's national government because its constitution gives its three regional governments — Wallonia being one of them — a potential veto over CETA, which has been seven years in the making.
Iran after a nuclear deal: Where will Canada stand?
Iran and the P5+1 – China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States, or the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, plus Germany – finally reached a deal on Tuesday resolving the long-standing dispute over Iran's nuclear ambitions. This raises questions for Canada, which has displayed a particularly aggressive stance toward Iran in recent years.
The Harper government's hostility toward Tehran has been based on the premise, frequently expressed by the Prime Minister and senior ministers, that Iran poses the greatest threat to international peace and security. The government has nuanced this assessment recently, labelling Iran a "significant" threat to international security, presumably reflecting growing concern about the Islamic State and Russia. Nevertheless, it remains that Canada has differentiated itself from its allies under the Conservatives, adopting a harder line against Iran.
Concretely, this has meant that to protest against Iran's nuclear program, human rights record, and confrontational regional policies, Canada has implemented all UN sanctions against Iran and has vocally adopted additional unilateral measures. In multilateral settings, Canadian diplomats repeatedly and assertively lambaste Iran. Ottawa also severed diplomatic relations in 2012.
As nuclear talks progressed over the past two years, Canada remained deeply skeptical of Iranian intentions and insisted that only tangible actions would prove Iran's commitment to restraining its nuclear program. Canada also systematically emphasized that human rights had not improved under President Hassan Rouhani and that Iran's support for terrorism across the Middle East continues unabated.