NAFTA: Couillard says about Trump

Photo Simon Clark
The threats of the american president Donald Trump to withdraw the United States from the NAFTA are designed to whisk his electoral base and do not necessarily reflect the status of the negotiations, says the prime minister Philippe Couillard.

Patrick Bellerose

Sunday, 27 August, 2017 15:26

UPDATE
Sunday, 27 August, 2017 15:30

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The threats of the american president Donald Trump to withdraw the United States from the NAFTA are designed to whisk his electoral base and do not necessarily reflect the status of the negotiations, says the prime minister Philippe Couillard.

“We need to stop giving too much importance to this type of communications there, and instead focus on what is happening in reality”, said Philippe Couillard Sunday, on the sidelines of the 41st annual Conference of the governors of New England and premiers of eastern Canada in Charlottetown.

The american president had reiterated on Twitter a few hours earlier on his threat to tear up the Agreement of free trade in north america between the United States, Canada and Mexico, currently under renegotiation. Donald Trump has made statements of a similar last week at a rally supporter to Phoenix.

For Philippe Couillard, these statements belong “to the internal debate american and I think it is for this debate that these communications are made, essentially”.

In spite of everything, the prime minister will use the meeting, which will take place on Sunday and Monday on the Île-du-Prince-Édouard to assert the importance of the NAFTA with governors and other u.s. officials.

Philippe Couillard has also pointed out that a withdrawal of the free trade agreement would have significant consequences on the american economy. “I don’t think that there is no american president who can put in a game of nine million jobs in his country”, he stressed.

More details will follow…