This Thursday, the first virtual meeting between the head of the office of the United States Trade Representation (USTR for its acronym in English), Katherine Tai, and the Minister of Economy of Mexico, Rachelwith which the private sector hopes that the dialogue between the two countries will be restarted, at a time when both sides are negotiating the issue of rules of origin for cars and Mexico’s energy policy.
As for the meeting to be held next Thursday, November 3, between Tai and Buenrostro -who took office on October 7-, the General Director of the Business Council for Foreign Trade, Investment, Science and Technology (Comce), Fernando Ruiz Huarte, said she “to wait” to reactivate the dialog of the new government”, but not only with the United States, but also with Canada.
A few days after it became known that, in addition to the departure of the Secretary of State for Foreign Trade, Luz María de la Mora, the directors of this Undersecretary had also left office, who were involved in some aspects of the negotiations related to the Treaty between Mexico, the United States and Canada (T-MEC)Ruiz Huarte added that not the whole team of the unit has left, i.e. other officials have stayed and more will come to assist in the process of negotiation.
“We are confident in the new authorities and that we will have a good team that will enter into the negotiations that we are developing and that will come shortly,” he explained.
This is because under the T-MEC, the preliminary ruling on the rules of origin for cars and auto parts is currently expected, in addition to the fact that the US and Canadian governments are in the dialogue or consultation phase against Mexico, on the problem of Mexican Energy Policy and in environmental issues related to caring for the vaquita porpoise and totoaba fish.
Also read: Mexico favors negotiations with T-MEC energy policy partners: Buenrostro
See how the renewal of the negotiations is going
However, he notes that the fact that the negotiations have been extended shows that there is progress, because if parties do not see that something concrete can be achieved, they can start a panel.
“If you’re negotiating and you see there’s no progress, you stop the negotiations, because you see you’re getting nowhere, so you stop,” although he didn’t rule out that “if it doesn’t come to an end, we’ll come to a close.” to a panel”.
Ruiz Huarte said that if a panel is elected on the energy issue, his resolution takes at least a yearso “we would see the sanctions until 2024 if they existed, I hope not.”
“If the panel shows that we are violating the T-MEC (in energy policy), there would be retaliation,” he said at a news conference.
He added that if there were a panel and if tariffs were imposed against Mexico, one might think that one of the products manufactured on Mexican territory that could be subject to a tariff would be pickup trucks. , which are levied by the United States at a 20% tariff for countries that do not have a trade agreement with them.
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