Saskatchewan’s premier and trade-dependent businesses are putting pressure on the federal government to come to a conclusion on the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Small and medium-sized Saskatchewan business leaders gathered at Saskatoon’s TCU Place on Thursday to talk trade, with NAFTA top of mind.

"We're quite concerned about how this is going to play out in terms of secure access to key markets, tariffs," Dale Botting, a business coach, told CTV News.

Canada’s Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland travelled from Washington, D.C., to Saskatoon, to give her federal counterparts a briefing on the NAFTA talks. Liberal MPs gathered in the Saskatchewan city for their late-summer retreat – discussing the government’s progress so far and position for re-election.

"We know this is a very complicated negotiation. And we are going to continue to be relentlessly and in a singular fashion focused on getting Canada that good deal," Freeland told reporters in Saskatoon.

Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe said no NAFTA deal is on par with a bad deal.

"We cannot move forward with a bad deal, I'm not certain we can move forward with no deal either. We need to engage with the United States. They're our largest trading partner," Moe said.

Freeland is back in Washington to continue NAFTA negotiations. The goal is to reach an agreement by December, so Congress can approve a revised NAFTA before Mexico gets a new president.