Washington: US President Donald Trump announced on Sunday that he will renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement with the leaders of Mexico and Canada.
Renegotiating the pact, signed two decades ago, was one of Trump’s primary campaign promises, EFE news reported.
At a White House event to swear in several top officials he had named, the President confirmed his intention to renegotiate NAFTA with Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto, whom he will welcome in Washington on January 31, and with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, whom he intends to meet soon.
Trump blames NAFTA for killing US jobs and for the closing of companies in the United States and the shifting of their operations to Mexico to lower costs.
The President said that he would discuss NAFTA with Peña Nieto along with “immigration” and “border security”.
On Saturday, White House spokesman Sean Spicer said that Peña Nieto, whom he mistakenly referred to as the Mexican “Prime Minister”, will visit the White House on January 31.
The Mexican President’s Office, meanwhile, said in a statement that on Saturday Peña Nieto telephoned Trump to congratulate him on his inauguration and express the willingness to “work on an agenda that benefits both countries”.
One of Trump’s key campaign promises was to build a wall along the US-Mexican border to halt illegal immigration to the United States, a wall that — he said — Mexico will pay for.
Spicer said that Trump also spoke on Saturday by phone with Trudeau, with whom he held a “constructive” conversation.
–IANS