Canada and Mexico Tighten Trade Ties While the United States Grows Skittish Paayal Zaveri - CNBC.com
go to original August 13, 2016

Abby Martin outlines the disastrous effects of so-called "free trade" policy NAFTA, including the ejection of over two million Mexican farmers, a surge in sweatshop labor and the destruction of Mexico's food sovereignty. (Empire Files)

Many U.S. voters have shown this year that they're skittish on foreign trade, but two close U.S. allies are moving in the opposite direction.

Canada is strengthening direct economic and political ties with Mexico, the two NAFTA members firming up their relationship as Donald Trump blasts the North American Free Trade Agreement, and Bernie Sanders and others condemn the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).

In late June, the government of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced that it will lift visa restrictions for Mexican visitors, a move that is likely to foster more direct trade and investment between the two countries. Canada and Mexico already have economic ties through NAFTA and even split some of the same industrial supply chains, but the visa rules deterred closer economic ties.

"That is going to do a lot to restore relations. I don't think (Mexico) President Pena Nieto would have visited Canada in that last leader summit had they not done so," Laura Dawson, director of the Canada Institute at the Woodrow Wilson Center, told CNBC. "At the same, the U.S. continues to have a visa for Mexicans coming to the United States; it is not the fact of the visa, it's how intrusive the Canadian visa was."

The visa restrictions are expected to be lifted by December of this year.

The U.S. has traditionally had stronger economic ties with both Canada and Mexico than either has had with the other.

Read the rest at CNBC.com

Related: In Canada, Auto Workers Blame Mexico (Jalopnik)

Related: Donald Trump’s Poll Numbers Move Markets - in Mexico (WSJ.com)

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