Trump threatens to scrap North American free trade deal

US President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that the United States might not renew its free trade agreement with Canada and Mexico and criticised trade deficits with those countries, although he said he was talking with their leaders about the matter.

The three countries need to approve a renewal of their existing agreement by July 1 or signal their intention to exit the pact, a process that would take 10 years and would buy time for alterations.

“I’m not looking to renew it,” Trump said at the White House.

“We don’t need anything that Canada has. We don’t need anything that Mexico has, but they need everything that we have. They have to treat us better.”

The US Trade Representative’s Office has said the US and Mexico will hold a second round of negotiations in Washington June 16 and 17, focused on agriculture and “a level playing field”, with a third set of talks in Mexico City scheduled for the week of July 20.

Canada had a positive meeting with the US on the review of the free trade deal, Canada’s minister responsible for Canada-US trade, Dominic LeBlanc, said on Tuesday, but no date for formal negotiations between the two countries has been set.