Americas leaders promise quick NAFTA redraw deal

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Americas leaders promise quick NAFTA redraw deal

By Roberta Rampton
Updated

Lima: The United States, Mexico and Canada will expedite NAFTA talks in a push to reach a deal in coming weeks, Mexico's president said on Saturday after a meeting with the US vice-president and Canadian prime minister.

On the sidelines of the Summit of the Americas in Lima, Peru, Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto, US Vice-President Mike Pence and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said they thought an agreement could be reached before Mexican elections on July 1, although they also said no deadlines had been set.

US Vice-President Mike Pence, right, shakes hands with Mexico's President Enrique Pena Nieto during a bilateral meeting at the Summit of the Americas in Lima, Peru, on Saturday.

US Vice-President Mike Pence, right, shakes hands with Mexico's President Enrique Pena Nieto during a bilateral meeting at the Summit of the Americas in Lima, Peru, on Saturday.Credit: AP

"We agreed to keep up work towards reaching a deal and to summon our special negotiating teams to accelerate their efforts," Pena Nieto said after meeting Pence.

"It was the same thing I agreed to with Prime Minister Trudeau," Pena Nieto added. "We hope in coming weeks we can reach an agreement."

The three countries, which created the world's largest free trade region by forming the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in the 1990s, are under pressure to renegotiate the deal before Mexicans elect a new president in July.

There are concerns US-Mexico relations could get rockier with Pena Nieto, a centrist, unable to seek a second six-year term due to Mexico's term limits.

US President Donald Trump has threatened to kill NAFTA if it is not changed to secure better terms for US workers and companies. In Mexico, leftist presidential frontrunner Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has vowed to cut the country's economic dependence on foreign powers and to put Trump "in his place".

Justin Trudeau, Canada's prime minister, speaks during a press conference at the Americas summit.

Justin Trudeau, Canada's prime minister, speaks during a press conference at the Americas summit.Credit: Bloomberg

With US mid-term congressional elections also pending in November, Trudeau said Canada would defer to Mexico and the United States on a timeline.

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"Of course, we'd like to see a re-negotiated deal land sooner than later," Trudeau said in a press conference, citing Mexican and US elections as a factor in timing. "We have a certain amount of pressure to try to move forward successfully in the coming weeks."

The summit itself proved lacklustre with the absence of US President Trump and several other regional leaders.

Those who did attend from throughout the Americas have vowed to confront systemic corruption at a time when graft scandals plague many of their own governments. But they made relatively little progress in determining a regional response to Venezuela's mounting humanitarian crisis.

Sixteen of the 33 nations gathered on Saturday for the eighth Summit of the Americas issued a statement on the sidelines of the event in Peru calling on Venezuela to hold free and transparent elections and allow international aid to the enter the beleaguered nation.

But the joint statement from mostly conservative-run countries didn't vary significantly from previous declarations or promise any additional money to help neighbouring countries respond to a mounting migration crisis aside from the nearly $US16 million pledged by the United States on  Friday.

"I don't see any progress there," said Richard Feinberg, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution who helped organise the first Summit of Americas in 1994.

Though the theme of this year's gathering of Western Hemisphere leaders was battling corruption, many leaders used the platform to voice their concerns on Venezuela as President Nicolas Maduro proceeds with plans to hold a presidential election that many foreign government consider a sham. Still, there were a handful of Venezuelan allies present including Cuba and Bolivia and the sole joint declaration adopted at the summit was a region-wide commitment to root out corruption.

Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro was not invited to the summit but found defenders in Bolivia and Cuba.

Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro was not invited to the summit but found defenders in Bolivia and Cuba.Credit: AP

The "Lima Commitment: Democratic Governance Against Corruption" includes 57 action points that Peruvian President Martin Vizcarra said would constitute a base for preventing corruption. Analysts are sceptical that it will lead to any tangible change. Many heads of state in attendance lead administrations that face allegations of misusing public funds, obstructing justice and accepting bribes.

"The hard part will come when leaders return home," said Shannon O'Neil, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations think tank. "These initiatives will take much time and effort to implement, and will in many places face significant push back."

This year's summit was one of the least attended yet, raising questions about the future of the regional gathering started in 1994 by then-US President Bill Clinton. US leader Donald Trump cancelled what would have been his first trip as president to Latin American in order to manage the US response to an apparent chemical weapons attack in Syria. More than a half-dozen other regional presidents followed suit, some in apparent acts of solidarity with Maduro, whose invitation was withdrawn.

Vice-President Pence said on Saturday that the US would submit a bid to host the next summit in 2021 in an apparent act to quell doubts about the nation's commitment to the region.

The summit's initial goal was to promote representative democracy and free trade in the Americas, but in recent years both topics have been testy subjects. Instead it has become a stage for awkward encounters between left-leaning leaders and their more conservative counterparts.

Some of that discord was on display at Saturday's plenary session, when Cuban foreign minister Bruno Rodriguez chastised Pence as "ignoring reality".

"I reject these insulting references to Cuba and Venezuela," he said after Pence assailed Maduro as being responsible for Venezuela's deepening crisis.

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Pence, who filled in for Trump, spent part of the summit trying to drum up support for further isolating Venezuela, which faces mounting US sanctions. In a forceful speech he said the US would not "stand idly by while Venezuela crumbles", but didn't announce any new measures.

US Senator Marco Rubio said that even without a formal declaration on behalf of the summit with an action plan for addressing Venezuela, he nonetheless felt the 16 nations who did sign on represent an important majority in terms of population size and economic might.

"We should do as much as we can together with our partners in the region," he said.

Reuters, AP

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