Can the TPP, reviled by Donald Trump, still offer a quick fix for NAFTA?
OTTAWA — Donald Trump may have killed the 12-country Trans-Pacific Partnership, but experts say parts of the moribund Pacific Rim trade pact could well be resurrected in an upgraded North American Free Trade Agreement.
That’s one way, they say, to help bring the outdated 23-year-old NAFTA up to the standards of modern era trade agreements — and to do so before talks become complicated by a presidential election in Mexico and U.S. congressional midterms.
Canada, Mexico and the U.S. were all originally TPP countries that viewed the new agreement as the primary means to upgrade a long-standing trade deal that was showing its age.
NAFTA was negotiated before the onset of the digital age and e-commerce, and before labour and the environmental protection provisions became regular features of trade deals.