Renegotiating NAFTA would be "an error": Bush
15/3/2007 16:19
US President George W. Bush said in Merida , Mexico yesterday that his
government would not renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement.
"In
my opinion it would be an error to renegotiate NAFTA," Bush said, adding that
the agreement has been running well and it already contains a mechanism to
handle problematic topics.
Wednesday was Bush's last day in Mexico, and the
last day of the five-nation Latin American tour that began last Wednesday in
Brazil and visited Uruguay, Colombian and Guatemala. He arrived on Monday in
Merida, the capital city of the eastern Mexican state of Yucatan.
Bush held a
series of meetings with Mexican President Felipe Calderon, promising to extend
the free trade agreement between the two nations.
Calderon told reporters
after the talks that the two had agreed to set up working groups seeking a
broader agreement, which will include sensitive products like corn and beans.
Bush said that neither nation is seeking to weaken free trade, instead they are
seeking to increase it and boost border security.
Mexican agricultural
producers have been complaining about subsidies that US producers enjoy, saying
that the subsidies harm their products' competitiveness in the US
market.
Bush has said the best way to resolve such problems was through
negotiations, and there should be no attempt to weaken the agreement so that
both sides can benefit from it.
NAFTA includes three members -- the United
States, Mexico and Canada, and was in force on Jan. 1, 1994. The United States
is Mexico's largest trading partner, while Mexico is the US's third largest,
after China and Canada.
Xinhua
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