WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump said Thursday he had agreed to pleas from the leaders of Canada and Mexico not to withdraw immediately from the North American Free Trade Agreement, but he warned he would still pull the United States out if he could not negotiate a better deal.
“I received calls from the President of Mexico and the Prime Minister of Canada asking to renegotiate NAFTA rather than terminate,” Trump said on Twitter. “I agreed …”
Moments later, the president added, “… subject to the fact that if we do not reach a fair deal for all, we will then terminate NAFTA. Relationships are good — deal very possible!”
Trump’s posts showed once again his taste for high-stakes deal-making and his willingness to reverse himself. Only hours earlier, the president’s aides put out word that he was likely to sign a directive starting a six-month clock to end the trade agreement.
As a practical matter, it is not clear Trump’s position has changed that much. During the 2016 campaign, he said he would seek to renegotiate NAFTA and pull out if he could not rework it to his satisfaction. That is essentially what he said on Twitter on Thursday morning.
Still, in the phone calls with President Enrique Peña Nieto of Mexico and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada — which came shortly after 6 p.m. Wednesday — Trump stepped back from the brink of a trade war with two of the biggest U.S. trading partners.
The White House described the calls as “pleasant and productive,” and Trump issued a statement Wednesday night, saying, “It is my privilege to bring NAFTA up to date through renegotiation. I believe that the end result will make all three countries stronger and better.”
The late-night announcement followed a day in which officials signaled that he was laying the groundwork to pull out of NAFTA, a move intended to increase pressure on Congress to authorize new negotiations and on Canada and Mexico to accede to U.S. demands.
Trump has frequently called NAFTA the worst trade deal ever signed by the United States. Washington must give Canada and Mexico six months’ notice before leaving the trade agreement, which came into force in 1994. Any action to that effect would start the clock.