Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross said the Trump administration is waiting for Congress to grant trade promotion authority to push ahead on renegotiating trade deals like the North American Free Trade Agreement.
Canada and Mexico want to move forward on the talks, particularly since Mexico has a presidential election next year, Ross told CNBC in an interview. He said NAFTA is ripe for reform.
“NAFTA is an ancient treaty. It’s decades old. Neither our economy nor the Mexican nor the Canadian economies are remotely similar to what they were back when the deal was done,” Ross said. “There’s nothing in it really about the digital economy. There’s relatively little in it about the service economy.”
The Trump administration last week startled investors and business leaders as several aides said officials were considering issuing an order that would begin the six-month process of having the U.S. withdraw from the three-nation trade