US President Donald Trump signed a free trade agreement with Mexico on Monday. US and Mexican authorities reached an agreement on revising the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement.
The US-Mexico Trade Agreement is “a really good deal for both countries,” Trump said before telephoning Mexican President Enrique Peña in the presence of the media.
The US plans to contact Canada about signing on the new document to improve their bilateral relations and also made clear that it will go ahead with the agreement with Mexico regardless.
The President called it “one of the largest trade deals ever made”, adding that “they used to call it NAFTA, we are going to call it the US-Mexico Trade Agreement, and we will get rid of the name NAFTA. It has a bad connotation because the US was hurt very badly by NAFTA”.
Trump had been pushing to renegotiate NAFTA since he became president in January 2017, having repeatedly called the trilateral pact, in force since 1994 and encompassing more than $1 trillion in annual trade, a “disaster” for the US.
The US markets hit fresh record highs amid latest development on improving trade relations. Asian indices also picked up and cheered with positive movement in stocks.