MEXICO CITY, June 11 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said he expected Mexico’s Senate to ratify next week a new North American trade deal known as the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA).
The president said Mexico’s Senate would hold an extraordinary session in a week’s time and the first item on the agenda was ratification of the US Mexico Canada Agreement.
“I can assure you that next week, the Senate will ratify this,” López Obrador said, adding that would help the legislative process in the US and Canada “greatly”.
After three days of tense negotiations, Mexico and the US averted Pres Trump’s threat to have begun levying tariffs from June 10 after Mexico promised to curb the flows of migrants arriving at the US border and to take back a higher number of migrants claiming asylum in the US pending their US court hearings.
The tariff shock would not only have been a disaster for Mexico’s weakening economy but would have flown in the face of a quarter-century of free-trade between the two neighbours under the North American Free Trade Agreement, which USMCA will replace.
López Obrador said he was heading to a cabinet meeting after his daily news conference “about the implementation of the plan which will enable us to deliver and to avoid in future any threat of tariffs. I’m sure we’ll have good results”. — NNN-AGENCIES
