Washington's top trade official eyes upgrades to the United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement, or USMCA, for its formal review in July of next year.
Historically, reviews of the tri-national free-trade agreement, and one of the main pillars of U.S. competitiveness, were mostly procedural. However, officials in Ottawa and Mexico City are expecting a more comprehensive visit by the Trump administration, which has reshaped the pre-existing dynamics of global trade networks by the unprecedented and arbitrary use of tariffs to exert economic and political influence around the world.
President Trump has threatened to even scrap the arrangement (USMCA is the successor of the North American Free Trade Agreement, NAFTA, negotiated in 1994 under the Bill Clinton administration) between the three North American nations.
Greer, Washington's top trade official, has spearheaded the administration's tariff policy with foreign governments in a drive to reshore the nation's domestic manufacturing base.
Greer is also reportedly preparing a series of harsh demands to be integrated into the newly revised USMCA with Washington's southern neighbor, the Mexican government of Claudia Shienbaum.
Mexico has recently put Asian nations in limbo after "voting to raise tariffs on a range of Chinese imports by up to 50%, stirring outcry from the government in Beijing" earlier in December, as previously reported by Sociedad Media.
Greer and officials in Washington plan to uproot Chinese influence in the Western hemisphere by pressuring Latin American partners to decouple their economies from Chinese trade reliance and investment.
Both Mexico and Canada, however, may be subjected to the economic whims of the Trump administration in Washington, due to its heavy reliance on the U.S. for its exports and imports.
Over 80% Mexico's exports, for instance, rely on its relationship with the USMCA.
