US, Mexico and Canada sign new trade deal
The US, Mexico and Canada today signed a new deal governing the more than one trillion dollars (£780bn) worth of trade between the three countries.
US President Donald Trump, Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Mexico’s President Enrique Pena Nieto signed the deal known as the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement today in Argentina at the start of the G20 summit.
Negotiations on the final details continued through the night following an acrimonious year-and-a-half of talks on the new deal.
It replaces the North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta) which came into force in 1994.
Trump had made the repeal of Nafta a key plank of his 2016 presidential campaign.
During the negotiations he threatened to unilaterally withdraw from Nafta, which he blamed for US companies moving jobs and factories to Mexico.
Before signing the deal Trudeau told Trump that the two countries should work together to eliminate steel and aluminium tariffs.
The deal will still need to be approved by the legislatures of each of the three countries.
Mexico’s President Enrique Pena Nieto joined the ceremony on his last day in office.
It is expected that Mexico will be the first country to pass the deal, with the government of incoming President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who takes office on Saturday, expected to ratify the deal quickly so it can focus on its domestic agenda.