AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka stressed on Sunday that any reworked North American Free Trade Agreement must include Canada, even after Canada and the U.S. missed a trade negotiation deadline set by the U.S. last week.
“Our economies are integrated,” Trumka said on “Fox News Sunday” of the three North American countries. “It’s pretty hard to see how that would work without Canada in the deal.”
Trumka also panned the 1994 NAFTA agreement, saying it was “devastating” to American workers.
Last week, President Trump announced a deal with Mexico to force auto manufacturers to source more parts from North America, among other changes. The Trump administration then missed a deadline Friday to come to an agreement with Canada on the president’s bilateral trade deal with Mexico, prompting the White House to submit the deal to Congress without Canada even while planning to continue talks between the two countries.
Calling NAFTA “one of the WORST Trade Deals ever made,” Trump warned in a series of tweets on Saturday that Canada “will be out” of the new NAFTA deal if a “fair deal” is not struck after “decades of abuse.”
In his appearance on TV one day before Labor Day, Trumka also ripped Trump, saying the president “to date, the things that he has done to hurt workers outpace what he’s done to help workers.”
