WASHINGTON—U. S. President Donald Trump’s administration is making such unrealistic North American Free Trade Agreement demands that the negotiation is at risk of implosion, trade experts and the top American business lobby group are warning.As Canadian and Mexican negotiators join Trump’s team near Washington on Wednesday to begin a critical fourth round of talks, their work is surrounded by growing transcontinental pessimism about the chances of reaching a revised deal.Prime Minister Justin Trudeau plans to emphasize the importance of the bilateral economic relationship, and the benefits of the trilateral agreement, when he meets with Trump at the White House on Wednesday. Trump, though, has greeted him with another threat, telling Forbes magazine that “NAFTA will have to be terminated if we’re going to make it good.”Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland declined Tuesday to speculate on the future of NAFTA or discuss Trump directly. But asked at a Washington event about a Republican senator’s claim that Trump’s recklessness threatens “World War III,” Freeland said: “I think that this is probably the most uncertain moment in international relations since the end of the Second World War.”Canadian officials have brushed off Trump’s rhetoric as negotiating bluster. Experts, however, say his professed disdain for the deal is being reflected in his negotiators’ actions to far — delaying the introduction of important proposals, then putting forth proposals obviously untenable to Canada and Mexico.The most important American complaint to date came Tuesday from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Republican-leaning business lobby. Speaking in Mexico City, president Thomas Donohue said he had no choice but to “ring the alarm bells” about “unnecessary and unacceptable” proposals from the U.S. side. “Heading into the negotiations, you could say that o ...
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