OTTAWA: Canada is “very keen” on concluding negotiations to renew the North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta) as soon as possible, Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland said on Saturday, amid signs of progress after months of delays.

Talks to modernise the 1994 trade pact started in August 2017 but have dragged on much longer than expected as Canada and Mexico pushed back against far-reaching US demands for reform. President Donald Trump has said he will walk away from Nafta unless major changes are made.

In a renewed push, Mexican and US cabinet ministers held a series of meetings in Washington over the past week in a bid to work out their differences. One Mexican official expressed optimism that some kind of agreement could be reached by the end of the month.

“I and Canada are very, very keen to get it done as quickly as possible,” Freeland told reporters on a conference call. Mexican and US officials are due to meet again next week to work on contentious issues such as wages and rules governing how much North American produced content an automobile must contain to qualify for duty-free status.

Published in Dawn, August 5th, 2018