Trade meeting between Mexico, the US and Canada will avoid the main disputes

US Trade Representative Katherine Tai’s meetings this week with Canada and Mexico will not delve into major disputes over Mexico’s biotech corn and energy policies, or Canada’s access to dairy products, the minister said. Wednesday a high-ranking USTR official.

The annual meeting of the trade agreement between Canada, the United States and Mexico, T-MEC, will take place on Thursday and Friday in the tourist Mexican city of Cancun, with the participation of Tai, the Mexican Secretary of Economy, Raquel Buenrostro, and the Minister International Trade Canadian, Mary Ng.

The meeting is a requirement within the rules of the T-MECwhich replaced the North American Free Trade Agreement in 2020, for partners to discuss issues related to the trade pact.

A senior US official told reporters on condition of anonymity that North American trade issues that are the subject of consultations or arbitration – and which could ultimately result in punitive US import duties – are being handled through separate channels.

The “main place” to discuss these issues is the specific consultations initiated under the USMCA’s dispute settlement rules, it added.

These issues include US complaints about Mexican policies to limit the use of GM corn imported from the United States, and about Canada’s allocation of dairy import quotas that US officials have said hurts US producers. .

These disputes also include the protracted USMCA consultations with Mexico over its energy policies that fail to meet commitments to open its energy market to external competitors.

“Obviously these are very important issues that remain so at all levels, so they are on the priority list,” the official said. “I wouldn’t say they are walled off, but certainly the main space to discuss them is in the actual consultations.”

The official noted that the three representatives will discuss the ongoing application of the USMCA, which is scheduled for a major review and possible updates in 2026.

A new subcommittee created last year on competitiveness and supply chains will also meet to update officials on work to ease trade flows during crisis situations and avoid disruption, the official added.

After a USMCA dispute settlement panel ruled in January against the stricter US interpretation of the trade pact’s auto rules of origin, siding with Mexico and Canada, Washington was working separately with its partners to find a solution to “improve North American motor vehicle production and employment,” the official said.

The Cancun meeting will also include discussions on the USMCA’s “rapid response mechanism” for labor rights violations at specific factories. The United States has invoked 11 cases under the mechanism since USMCA was launched, including an investigation into a Goodyear Tire & Rubber CoGT.N plant in Mexico that is the sixth this year.

The official said that the USTR has achieved good cooperation from Mexico in the mechanism, whose objective is to improve labor rights in Mexican factories.

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