The President of Mexico, Claudia Sheinbaumassured this Friday, October 24, that trade negotiations with the United States are “very advanced”, while avoiding commenting on the sudden announcement by the US president, Donald Trump, to suspend trade negotiations with Ottawa.
“We are going to wait to see how the relationship with Canada progresses. In the case of Mexico, we are very advanced,” The Federal President stressed during “The People’s Morning” about Trump’s break with Canada, due to a Canadian advertising spot that criticized the tariffs with words from former US president Ronald Reagan (1981-1989).
“The Secretary of Economy (Marcelo Ebrard) He is going next week to APEC (in South Korea), there he will still have meetings with President Trump’s administration to close some agreements that we still need, but we are doing very well,” he added.
The Mexican Governor thus refused to evaluate the announcement of Trumpwhich surprised the Canadian government with the cancellation of the trade agreement negotiations and which in recent weeks had redoubled negotiating efforts with Washington to eliminate or reduce the tariffs imposed this year on its exports.
The controversy arose after the broadcast of a television advertisement, paid for by the province of Ontario and broadcast on USAwhich uses footage from a speech given by President Ronald Reagan in 1987 in which he explained that tariffs were bad for American workers.
Two years later, on January 1, 1989, the Free Trade Agreement between Canada and the United States came into force, which was the precursor to the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) of 1994 with the inclusion of Mexico.
Today, Sheinbaum avoided commenting on the disagreement between the United States and Canada and recalled that they are advancing in the conversations for the review of the T-MECupdate of the trade pact sealed between the three countries in 2019.
However, he specified that the US authorities, during this review, have raised some points that are considered barriers to the trade agreement.
“We don’t consider many of them that way, but it is quite advanced,” he insisted.
A week ago, Secretary Ebrard indicated before the plenary session of the Mexican Senate that the T-MEC was going to “survive” after the review scheduled for 2026, despite threats from Trump, who has postponed the application of tariffs to the southern neighbor on several occasions.
The review of the T-MEC in 2026 occurs amid tariff tensions since the US president took office on January 20, with levies on sectors such as steel, aluminum and automotive.
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