Mexican presidential front-runner Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said that his country would get along fine economically if the North American Free Trade Agreement were to collapse, an indication that the leftist former mayor of Mexico City was edging away from his prior campaign assurances that he would not try to undermine the 1993 trade deal.

“I am going to suggest that the treaty remains, but (the end of NAFTA) cannot be fatal for Mexicans, our country has a lot of natural resources, a lot of wealth,” he said in a presidential debate held late Tuesday in the city of Merida. Obrador has a long history of being critical of international trade deals but had previously sought to allay concerns that his election would negatively impact NAFTA, which is broadly popular in Mexico.