The U.S. Trade Representative's office announced on Wednesday that it will start the first of three scheduled negotiating rounds with Mexico this week aimed at updating the North American trade arrangement, without mentioning any planned negotiations with Canada.
According to the USTR statement, Deputy U.S. Trade Representative Jeffrey Goettman will lead a bilateral meeting in Mexico City on Thursday and Friday that will concentrate on "economic security and rules of origin for key industrial goods." A second round is set for Washington on June 16-17, where agriculture and creating "a level playing field" will be focal topics, and a third set of talks is scheduled to return to Mexico City in the week of July 20.
USTR said the negotiations "will focus on ensuring that the USMCA benefits U.S. manufacturers, farmers, ranchers, workers, and service suppliers, and businesses of all sizes, including our small and medium-sized enterprises."
The announcement underscores a bilateral approach with Mexico, contrasting with how the original USMCA was negotiated. The earlier Trump administration conducted trilateral negotiating rounds with both Mexico and Canada to develop the agreement that superseded the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement in 2020. The recent USTR statement, however, made no mention of comparable bilateral talks with Canada.
There have been limited exchanges between U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer and his Canadian counterpart, Canada-U.S. Trade Minister Dominic LeBlanc, since early March, and no formal launch of a U.S.-Canada negotiating process has been announced.
Greer, speaking on Tuesday in Washington, described differences between the United States and Canada as "significant" and said they would be difficult to resolve. He identified specific sticking points involving Canada's refusal to accept U.S.-imposed tariffs on Canadian vehicles, steel and aluminum and contrasted that stance with other trading partners where the United States has negotiated concessions. Greer also criticized Canada for retaliating with its own tariffs on U.S. vehicles, steel and aluminum, noting that only Canada and China had taken such retaliatory measures. He added that several Canadian provinces had removed U.S. liquor from store shelves.
In a development the USTR noted in its statement, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney announced that Canada’s military was negotiating to acquire Swedish early warning radar aircraft from Saab rather than buying from U.S.-based Boeing.
Greer said the United States plans to retain some level of tariffs on both Mexican and Canadian goods under the USMCA framework. The USMCA, together with NAFTA before it, established a largely tariff-free zone across North America for more than three decades and supported nearly $1.6 trillion in trilateral trade, the USTR statement noted.
At the same time, Greer suggested that Mexico and Canada could receive preferential treatment if bilateral deals can be reached that would shield the North American region from external products, including from China, by implementing higher external tariffs and strengthening rules of origin for automobiles and industrial goods. He said those rules of origin would be intended to spur increased domestic production, without offering specific details on U.S. demands.
"I think that over the course of these negotiations, we are going to be talking about rules of origin in a way that enhances U.S. content in these goods," Greer said regarding the Mexico talks.
The USTR schedule lays out a focused, three-round itinerary with distinct topic areas for each session, but leaves open questions about when or whether formal discussions with Canada will begin and how specific tariff and origin rules will be defined and enforced.