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REUTERS
WASHINGTON
PRESIDENT Donald Trump said he was ready to kill the 23-year-old trade agreement with Canada and Mexico but agreed to renegotiate it after pleas from their leaders, expressing optimism about extracting better terms for the US.
Trump, during a White House appearance with visiting Argentine President Mauricio Macri, said terminating the North American Free Trade Agreement, a pact he has long condemned,"would be a pretty big shock to the system,"though he was planning to do so within two or three days.
Hours after White House officials disclosed on Wednesday that Trump and his advisers had been considering an executive order to withdraw from NAFTA, he said he received telephone calls from Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
"They asked me to renegotiate. I will,"Trump said."And I think we'll be successful in the renegotiation, which frankly would be good because it would be simpler"than killing NAFTA.
Mexico, Canada and the United States form one of the world's biggest trading blocs, and trade disruptions among them could cause havoc in automotive, agricultural, energy and other sectors.
Trump had repeatedly threatened to pull out of NAFTA, which erased most tariffs between the three neighbors, if he could not renegotiate better terms for the United States, which went from running a small goods trade surplus with Mexico in the early 1990s to a $63-billion deficit in 2016. On Thursday he said NAFTA had been"horrible"to the United States but very good for Canada and Mexico.
There had been a split among Trump's top advisers over whether to move to terminate the trade pact.
