U.S. trade czar: Don't get 'too comfortable' North American trade pact will stay as is

Don't get too comfortable with the North American trade pact: that's the warning from President Joe Biden's top trade official as countries prepare to review the deal.

Katherine Tai made the comments as the agreement between Canada, the U.S. and Mexico, known in the U.S. as USMCA, passed the halfway point toward the six-year mark where countries will start discussing its renewal.

The agreement includes what's referred to sometimes as a sunset clause: Once the renewal process starts, countries have a decade to agree to new terms – or else the pact disappears.

The U.S. ambassador to Canada has already told CBC News that officials in his country have begun discussing their priorities for renewal talks starting in 2026.

It's worth noting that the renewal talks will only begin after the next U.S. election and it's not clear whether, at that point, Joe Biden or Donald Trump will be president.

The former Trump administration was notorious for constantly threatening to rip up North America's trade deal, something the current administration has never done.

But Tai urged the countries not to take things for granted. She suggested that negotiators will feel more pressure to improve the agreement if they're worried about its future.

«You do not want that review to happen in a way that all three parties come to the conversation too comfortable,» Tai told a forum organized Wednesday by the Brookings Institution, a Washington-based think-tank.

«The whole point is to maintain a certain level of discomfort – which may involve a certain level of uncertainty. To keep the parties motivated to do the really hard thing, which is to continue to re-evaluate our trade policies and trade programs… That discomfort is actually a feature – not a bug.»

Dairy