Trump wants to rename NAFTA trade deal USMC, may drop Canada

President
Donald Trump and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau at the G7
summit
Leon Neal/Getty
Images

• President Donald Trump told donors at a dinner Wednesday that
  he wants to rename the North American Free Trade Agreement,
  better known as NAFTA.
• Trump said that the new name could be the USMC, or
  US-Mexico-Canada pact.
• Trump also threatened to drop the “C” if Canada did not make
  serious concessions in current talks.

President Donald Trump wants to give a new name to the
US-Canada-Mexico trilateral trade deal.

According to
The Wall Street Journal, Trump told supporters at a
fundraising dinner on Wednesday that the
North American Free Trade Agreement, better known as NAFTA,
could be rebranded as the “USMC” pact. 

The USMC acronym is known as an acronym for the US Marine Corps.

But that potential conflict could be solved by dropping Canada
from the pact, which the president threatened to do during the
dinner. Trump appeared to be particularly focused on Canada’s
dairy tariffs, a longstanding obsession.

Trump triggered a renegotiation of NAFTA just days after taking
office, and formal talks kicked off in August 2017. The
US and Mexico recently announced a bilateral agreement on key
elements of NAFTA, but negotiations between the US and Canada are
ongoing.

The president has repeatedly threatened to leave Canada out of
the final deal and already formally notified Congress about the
bilateral agreement with Mexico.

Chrystia Freeland, Canada’s global affairs minister, was in
Washington, DC, for talks with US Trade Representative Robert
Lighthizer earlier this week, but the two sides are still
negotiating over a handful of issues, including the dairy
tariffs.

The fundraiser was hosted by the Republican National Committee. A
small meeting with the president at the event cost $100,000 per
person, while the dinner that followed was $35,000 per couple,
according to the Journal. The event raised a total of $3 million
for the Trump Victory fund,
the Journal said.