OTTAWA (Reuters) – Mexico on Wednesday opened the possibility that talks to revamp the NAFTA trade agreement were so complex that they could run into 2018, beyond an end-December deadline designed to avoid Mexico’s presidential election campaign which kicks off in March. 

The United States, Canada and Mexico said at the end of a five-day session in Ottawa there had been progress made in the talks but acknowledged that much work remained to conclude the negotiations by the end of the year. 

Mexico’s Economy Minister Ildefonso Guajardo said there would be “substantial challenges” in the next round in Washington on Oct. 11-15. 

“We have the ambition, we have the strength to try to move forward with a view to closing a negotiation but no one can assure with total certainty that we will be able to do it,” Guajardo told reporters. 

“That is our expectation and, therefore, it must also be considered that in this process dates will have to be considered, if necessary, for the start of the next year,” he added. 

The three countries have rushed to finish talks to modernize the 23-year-old North American Free Trade Agreement even though trade experts dismissed the deadline as impossible. 

The Trump administration has been criticized by Canadian and Mexican officials for not yet presenting some of the most contentious issues in NAFTA, including content rules of origin. 

“Staff are working at a pace that is unheard of (in trade negotiations) … and any suggestion that we’re not operating beyond a normal pace is just flat wrong,” U.S. trade envoy Robert Lighthizer told reporters. 

Strains between Ottawa and Washington also emerged on Wednesday, a day after a U.S. trade panel said it would impose preliminary subsides on Canadian jet manufacturer Bombardier Inc after rival Boeing Co accused Canada of unfairly subsidizing its CSeries jets. 

Lighthizer said Canada had “mentioned” the U.S. ruling during talks on Wednesday. 

Asked whether the dispute could affect NAFTA talks, Lighthizer told reporters: “I‘m not saying it doesn’t have an effect on relationships, it does, but not on this negotiation.” 

Negotiators said they had wrapped up one chapter on small and medium-sized enterprises in Ottawa and expected to finish another on competition before the next round. 

Lighthizer said the United States would “hopefully” present draft text by the next round on the thorny issue of rules of origin, which outlines how much of a product needs to originate in a NAFTA country, and on a dispute settlement mechanism. 

Canada’s Foreign Minister, Chrystia Freeland, has said it was typical of trade talks to wrap up the “bread and butter” issues first before getting into more challenging topics. 

“We never said this was going to be easy,” Freeland told reporters. 

Trade among the three nations has quadrupled since NAFTA came into effect in 1994, surpassing $1 trillion in 2015. 

But U.S. President Donald Trump regularly calls the treaty a disaster and has threatened to walk away from it unless major changes are made, claiming NAFTA has resulted in U.S. job losses and a trade deficit with Mexico. 

The Bombardier decision is likely to further harden Canada’s stance on keeping a key dispute-settlement mechanism in NAFTA, which the Trump administration wants to eliminate. 

Lighthizer said the U.S. decision on Bombardier still had several stages to go through before it was finalized. 

“There are several more stages, we don’t even know whether it is going to be successful, and in addition there are off-ramps in the litigation,” he said. “It’s too early to tell.” 

Freeland has suggested that Canada could walk away from the NAFTA talks over the so-called Chapter 19 dispute mechanism, under which binational panels make binding decisions on complaints about illegal subsidies and dumping. The United States has frequently lost such cases. 

A lengthy fight over Chapter 19 could also drag out the negotiations. 

The U.S. delegation presented draft text on NAFTA labor standards on Tuesday and put forward proposals on investment and intellectual property at the weekend. 

Laxer labor standards and lower pay in Mexico have swelled corporate profits at the expense of Canadian and U.S. workers, the U.S. administration claims, making the issue one of the major battlegrounds of the NAFTA talks. 

While the U.S. draft text on labor standards did not detail wage levels, Lighthizer said all sides were interested in getting into wage specifics to help Mexican workers 

OTTAWA—Under pressure from Canada and the U.S., Mexico appears willing to agree to enforceable labour standards to improve working conditions as the price for ensuring duty-free trade with its North American neighbours.

Moises Kalach, the head of trade for the Mexican national business council that is in close consultation with Mexico’s negotiating team, told the Star that Mexico is prepared to accept tougher labour provisions than are in the 23-year-old NAFTA.

“In the end, Mexico will sign to a deal that is a balanced pact, that will be beneficial to Mexico. If that balanced pact or new deal has a labour provision inside of it and that focuses a higher standards, probably yes, but it has to be a whole thing.”

“We’ve been very clear, a good deal has to have no tariffs, has to be a free trade agreement. You cannot limit exports. We would not sign into something that’s lower than what we have in NAFTA,” he said in an interview at the Mexican embassy.

The North American Free Trade Agreement needs to be updated because of advances in technology and other changes since it was enacted in 1993, the CEO of the Texas Association of Business told a conference in Longview.

“We have 23 years of looking at how the trade agreement has functioned,” Jeff Moseley said Friday during the 2017 International Trade Summit hosted by the Longview Chamber of Commerce. “Look at how much the world has changed.” 

As negotiators from Canada, Mexico and the United States headed to Ottawa, Ontario, for a third round of talks beginning this weekend on the agreement , Moseley was arguing for the sorts of change that would allow cross-border trade to continue to flourish despite uncertainty caused by the election of President Donald Trump.

Moseley, who heads an organization with 4,000 members statewide, compared mobile phones from the early 1990s that “looked like a briefcase” to smartphones small enough to fit in a pocket.

“Today, you can carry a walking computer,” he said. “You see how much technology has advanced.”

Southern border crossings date from the Eisenhower administration, he said, noting that 14,000 trucks daily enter the United States through Laredo. He suggested new technology, such as facial recognition software, could both secure and expedite border crossings to grow commerce.

The stakes are high for Texas. Moseley said 400,000 Texans work in trade, primarily with Mexico. So the business association put together the Texas-Mexico Trade Coalition, a binational group of business interests seeking to keep Mexico Texas’ No. 1 trading partner.

On Friday, the Trump administration was taking another side, releasing data it said proves the NAFTA playing field is tilted against U.S. manufacturers. A report issued by the Commerce Department contains data showing the United States is playing a diminished role in manufacturing products that are bought and sold around the continent. Meanwhile, countries outside of North America — like China — are capitalizing on NAFTA’s weak rules and benefiting from the trade agreement, the report said.

The administration’s report was expected to dominate this weekend’s NAFTA discussions over “rules of origin.” Those rules govern how much of a good must be produced in North America to qualify for NAFTA’s zero tariffs on many products.

The United States is expected to push for raising those limits. Negotiators also appear poised to argue for a new requirement on how much of those goods need to be made in the United States.

Since 1994, NAFTA has knit together the North American economy by lowering the barriers companies face when they ship products across borders. While most studies suggest the deal has had a modest overall effect on the U.S. economy, it has encouraged companies to reorganize their supply chains by moving lower-cost operations to Mexico. And it has become a huge source of controversy, with Trump describing it as the “worst trade deal ever made.”

Responding to a question from chamber President and CEO Kelly Hall, Moseley said a draft trade agreement could be negotiated by mid-December, giving Congress until June to approve it.

However, he also expressed concerns that an anti-American candidate could be elected president in Mexico in July.

At least one large Longview-based manufacturer is watching the NAFTA talks with interest. Todd Anderson, president of Stemco, told the conference a big chunk of his company’s business is based on exports to Mexico and other countries. It also has manufacturing operations in Mexico.

Stemco, the Longview-based subsidiary of EnPro Industries Inc., manufactures a line of systems and components for the commercial vehicle industry. The Longview plant has about 370 employees.

Anderson said Mexico and Canada combined account for about 25 percent of Stemco’s sales, adding, “We are growing in some key international markets.”

Stemco also has trained more than 60,000 people throughout the United States, Mexico and Canada in recent years, Anderson said.

He said NAFTA also is important to Stemco because the company manufactures air springs in Mexico. Stemco acquired a production operation in Mexico in 2015.

Other speakers at Friday’s summit discussed governmental agency services that aim to help small businesses land export opportunities.

The mission of the U.S. Commercial Service of the U.S. Department of Commerce is to promote the export of goods and services by small- and mid-sized businesses, Senior Commercial Officer Sheryl Maas told the conference. She added her agency also represents American business interests internationally and helps businesses find qualified partners in other countries.

She said the Longview chamber may want to arrange a trade mission, adding, “We can help you with that.”

Kelly Kemp, regional director the North Texas branch of the U.S. Export-Import Bank, said his agency operates through the private sector to provide support in more than 155 countries. The Export-Import Bank provides insurance guarantees on principal and interest for export-related inventory and accounts/receivables.

Small businesses face challenges to expanding their export businesses that include lack of information, capital and access to markets, said Alale Allal, regional export trade finance manager for Texas and Oklahoma of the Office of International Trade of the U.S. Small Business Administration.

He said SBA provides services that include export loans with 90 percent guarantees for lenders, and cited the availability of credit insurance for risks such as not being paid.

Allal advised audience members seeking to export to make initial contact through their banks for loans. Lenders then send paperwork to the SBA.

Amazon is gearing up to open a massive warehouse in Mexico as it aims to tap into the e-commerce market that has yet to take off in the country. Citing sources familiar with the project, Reuters reported that the 1-million-square-foot warehouse will be located in Tepotzotlan, near Mexico City, and is slated to be completed in 2018. With the new facility, Amazon’s distribution space in the country will triple, noted Reuters.

While U.S. consumers have long been fans of online shopping, shoppers in Mexico aren’t as willing to purchase things from the internet. Online shopping accounts for only around 3% of retail sales in the country, reported Reuters. In the U.S., more than 10% of retail sales come from the internet. Fraud and a lack of credit cards have been two reasons for the low adoption rate in Mexico.

The Seattle-based retailing giant wants to change that. According to Euromonitor International, it is currently Mexico’s third biggest e-commerce company, posting sales in 2016 that more than doubled from 2015. As in its other markets, it wants to be the leader in Mexico as well. It doesn’t hurt that if the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) is overhauled, the U.S. could get Mexico to raise the limits on online purchases that can be imported into the country duty free. Currently the cap is at $50, noted Reuters.

Julio Gil, a spokesman for Amazon, wouldn’t comment on the impending warehouse but told the news service the company is looking to expand the number of products it offers in Mexico, as well as decrease delivery times and make it easy and secure to make online purchases. The goal is to get more people comfortable shopping online. The new warehouse will be able to handle shipping larger products to Mexican consumers, such as furniture. It may also act as a distribution point for shipments to the U.S., noted the report.

China’s largest online retailer, recently inked a deal with the Mexican government to enable small and medium-sized businesses to sell their products to the millions of Chinese consumers online. Under the e-commerce partnership, which was signed by Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto and Alibaba head Jack Ma, the Chinese company will work with Mexico’s Ministry of Economy to aid businesses in selling their products to other businesses in China. In the initial stage of the deal, Alibaba will create a tailored program so that the Mexican businesses can take advantage of its business-to-business trading platform. It will also provide logistics and a payment platform to enable cross border e-commerce and to lure Chinese tourists to Mexico.

SAN JUAN DEL RIO, Mexico — Looming above a Canadian auto-parts plant, keeping watch over workers, is a painting of the Virgin Mary. This same plant plans a celebration of its latest expansion with a party featuring a mariachi band.

It’s far from Windsor. It’s close to Mexico City.

The story of the Exo-s factory is the story of NAFTA: manufacturing booming in Mexico, while surviving in the north; supply chains that are internationally interconnected and extra-efficient; and a Mexican workforce seeing the most modest gains and longing for more.

Canadian auto-parts companies have more than 120 plants and 43,000 employees in Mexico, and this Quebec-based plastics-maker is among them. It has grown a bit in Canada, but exploded here: when it opens a new warehouse on its property, its Mexican workforce will have nearly tripled to 300.

While workers hammer and weld together the new warehouse frame, the plant manager explains why Mexico was a must.

His company’s customers — GM, Cadillac, Fiat Chrysler — are here and need plastic products. They opened plants here because of Mexico’s low costs, government incentives, and free-trade agreements with 47 countries allowing tariff-free shipment throughout Latin America.

“For us it was a no-brainer,” Francois Ouellet said.

“When (our customers) open a new plant they want us to be close to them. If not we would have put at risk our actual business we have in Canada and the United States… We would have a problem to keep our business (without Mexico).”

The company’s U.S. and Canadian branches are still adding jobs, albeit more modestly. Canada has about 127,000 auto jobs today, the same the year before NAFTA was signed in 1993.

But something dramatic then happened. Canada’s long-term trendline looks like a steep mountain: employment climbed toward a peak in 2000, dropped, then plunged catastrophically after the 2008 recession and is now slowly inching back to early 1990s levels.

The Great Recession was a near-death experience for many companies, including the precursor to Exo-s. It relied upon GM for three-quarters of its revenues — and that giant’s near-collapse almost pulled down an entire ecosystem of suppliers.

Exo-s responded by diversifying. It not only spread operations to Mexico; it spread beyond the auto sector, beyond its core business of under-the-hood plastics like engine covers and coolant tanks.

On the same Mexican plant floor that produces car parts, an overhead machine spits down black, plastic trash bins. Someone strips away excess plastic, then hands the bins to Nataly Jacobo.

She grabs one bin to insert a wheel, then another, then another. She repeats this over an eight-hour shift, six days a week. The 23-year-old usually works on car parts, producing more than 3,000 pieces a week.

Her weekly salary is about Cdn $61.

This represents a raise for her. She arrived here three months ago from a job that paid $51. She also gained benefits here: the company subsidizes half her meals, offers free transport, and built a shower with hot water which many households here lack.

Ask her whether she deserves more, and she squirms. But she answers a broadly phrased followup: What if NAFTA were adjusted, so people in your country earned more?

“Mexicans make very little,” Jacobo replied.

“(Salaries) could be a bit higher… It would be good if they kept us in mind (at the negotiating table) — the Mexicans.”

Salaries have indeed increased in this manufacturing area. Ouellet estimates that his average worker makes about $6-$7 an hour with benefits, and it’s going up because of an acute labour shortage here.

“Go around everywhere. You’re going to see signs that they need employees. All companies — hotels, restaurants,” Ouellet said. “It’s really hard to find employees. So there’s (salary) increases.”

That’s in this manufacturing area.

But the overall story of NAFTA, in Mexico, is one of flat wages. In fact, they’ve declined overall because traditional corn-farming communities have been hard-hit by U.S. competition since 1993.

The Canadian government is pushing for higher labour standards in a new agreement. It has consulted closely with union leader Jerry Dias, who has done multiple interviews in Mexico spreading the message that Mexicans deserve a pay raise.

Dias said workers across the continent would benefit if Mexicans got more independent unions, freer collective bargaining, and pay hikes. The Unifor boss repeatedly told media assembled at last week’s NAFTA talks: “Mexican workers deserve to be able to buy the products that they make.”

It’s more complicated than that, according to industry and some analysts.

For starters, it’s unclear how an international agreement would enforce local labour laws. Dias favours an international panel. But the U.S. wants to end the international panels that already exist for intra-industry disputes.

There’s also the question of unintended economic consequences.

Industry insists profit margins are tight, and big salary hikes would just steer jobs like Jacobo’s toward Asia — or to machines. Canada’s auto-parts association says these jobs simply won’t ever return to Canada.

But the association’s Flavio Volpe said Canada does benefit from being part of supply chains that include Mexico.

That includes a certain plastics maker from Richmond, Que. It is planning a party in its other home — about a 43-hour drive south, off a road lined with taco eateries and women selling colourful, hand-woven indigenous clothing.

 OTTAWA—Canada, the U.S. and Mexico put a positive spin Tuesday on what sources say was a tough five-day round of negotiations to rewrite North American free trade rules.

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – U.S., Canadian and Mexican negotiators are zeroing in on ways to enshrine Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto’s sweeping energy reforms into a modernized North American Free TradeAgreement, Mexico’s chief negotiator said on Saturday.

“We’re working in this sense, analyzing all of the elements that need to be included in the energy discussion to reflect the reform Mexico established,” Mexico’s chief tradenegotiator, Kenneth Smith, said on Saturday after a bargaining session in the second round of NAFTAmodernization talks.

Smith, speaking to reporters as he walked side-by-side with his counterparts John Melle of the United States and Steve Verheul of Canada, added that negotiators would “look for mechanisms that allow us to integrate ourselves in a positive way in the energy sector.”

Tradenegotiators from the three nations are working through the weekend in Mexico City to present more proposals to revamp NAFTA, an accord that underpins more than $1.2 trillion in annual cross-border trade.

When NAFTAwas enacted in 1994, Mexico’s energy sector was closed and Pena Nieto’s reforms ended a decades-long monopoly for national oil company Pemex and ensured competitive oil auctions. Incorporating them into NAFTAwould help shield them from any future governments that may want to reverse them.

Tradeexperts both in the United States and Mexico have said that increasing energy tradeand investments through NAFTAwould help reduce the $64 billion U.S. tradedeficit with Mexico that irritates U.S. President Donald Trump, partly through increased U.S. gas and oilfield equipment sales to Mexico. 

PENA NIETO STRIKES BACK AT TRUMP’S SWIPES 

Trump has repeatedly threatened to rip up NAFTA, warning he could do so again just this week.

Pena Nieto, in his annual address to the nation on Saturday, defended free tradeand young migrants in the United States, saying his government would not accept insults against “national dignity” from Trump’s administration.

“The relationship with the new government of the United States, like any other nation, must be based on irrevocable principles: sovereignty, defense of the national interest and protection of our migrants,” Pena Nieto said.

“We will not accept anything that goes against our national dignity,” he told a crowd of politicians and the country’s elite, who rose at that point to deliver the most vigorous standing ovation of his address.

Trump this week also insisted again that Mexico would eventually pay for his proposed wall on the southern U.S. border to block the flow of illegal immigrants and drugs. 

Pena Nieto shied away from mentioning the wall but said Mexico would promote the recognition of migrants for their contributions and reject discrimination against them. 

Pena Nieto also said Mexico would continue to defend NAFTAas a vehicle to further integrate the region.

“The negotiating team has precise instructions to participate in this process with seriousness, good faith and a constructive spirit,” he said, “always putting first the interest of Mexico while reaching for a result where all three countries win.”

Trump has repeatedly threatened to pull out of NAFTAif talks do not go his way and on Saturday said he would discuss next week with his advisers whether to withdraw from a tradedeal with South Korea that he has also long criticized.

Top Mexican officials said Latin America’s No. 2 economy would walk away from negotiations if Trump moves to withdraw from the deal.

Negotiators were going to take until Monday to get to one of the thorniest issues, U.S. demands for increased North American and U.S. content for autos and other manufactured goods, according to a schedule seen by Reuters.

Mexico’s Smith said no specific proposals had been put on the table by U.S. negotiators regarding rules of origin.

MEXICO CITY — One week into talks to renegotiate NAFTA, President Trump lobbed another grenade over his so-far-imaginary Mexico border wall, telling a rally in Phoenix on Tuesday night that “I don’t think we can make a deal.”

Trump’s argument was a familiar one, that the United States has been “so badly taken advantage of” by “one of the worst deals” that “we’ll end up probably terminating NAFTA at some point.”

Mexico’s public reaction to what would be a massive economic development — if followed through on — was essentially a yawn. Foreign Minister Luis Videgaray brushed off Trump’s comments as simply a negotiating tactic that should not surprise or frighten Mexico.

“He’s negotiating in his own particular style,” Videgaray told a local TV station.

Trump’s threats to walk away from the 23-year-old free-trade agreement with Mexico and Canada have been made several times before, as part of his objection to the $60 billion trade deficit with Mexico and a loss of manufacturing jobs from parts of the United States. In a phone call with President Enrique Peña Nieto in January, Trump talked about imposing a border tax of up to 35 percent on Mexican exports. During the Group of 20 meeting in Hamburg last month, Trump again reiterated his frustration with NAFTA, according to a Mexican official informed about the meeting between the two leaders.

“We’re all very clear that this is the worst deal in the history of the U.S.,” the official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to be candid, said with a touch of exasperation.

Despite all those warnings, many Mexican business and political leaders remain upbeat about the chances of a deal, including one that might boost trade on both sides of the border and modernize an agreement made in the early 1990s, before the e-commerce age took off.

Juan Pablo Castañon, president of Mexico’s Business Coordinating Council, a coalition of business groups, recently predicted that there was a 90 percent chance of success.

“This is a great opportunity to strengthen the North American region,” said Manuel Herrera, president of the Confederation of Industrial Chambers (Concamin) and a member of an advisory body to the trade negotiators. “We can become even more competitive as a region.”

And yet, many Mexicans acknowledge that risks remain and are wary that the Trump administration could impose unacceptable demands that could hurt booming industries such as auto manufacturing.

“We’ve opened up a huge negotiation process of one of the world’s most ambitious trade agreements on the back of very anti-Mexican” rhetoric from Trump, said the Mexican official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “The whole thing is full of not only potholes, but mines, that could derail it at any time.”

One risk is that negotiations could drag on into next year, when Mexico has a presidential election, and the trade talks would get swept up into a more volatile political environment or a new administration that might be less inclined to deal with Trump.

“I believe the very short window of opportunity will be the first quarter of next year, at a maximum,” said Larry Rubin, a Republican Party representative here and president of the American Society of Mexico. Rubin said a deal was still in the best interest of all three countries. “I’m sure they will get to an agreement,” he said.

Even if the upheaval of Trump’s threats to scrap NAFTA amounts to nothing but a slightly tweaked agreement, Mexicans have been made well aware of the risks of relying too heavily on the United States during this period of uncertainty. The feverish effort underway to diversify the Mexican economy and boost trade with parts of South America, Europe and Asia is likely to continue regardless of how NAFTA shakes out. And that could mean fewer trade benefits for the United States, said Benjamin Gedan, who was National Security Council director for Latin America during the Obama administration.

“That is a price we will pay for a generation,” said Gedan, a scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington.

The next round of NAFTA talks is scheduled for next month in Mexico City.

Mexico’s energy markets offer tens of billions of dollars in opportunities for U.S. energy companies, thanks to a once-in-a-century privatization effort.

But the best chance to take advantage will last only as long as the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Mexico’s oil and natural gas production is down 40 percent from peak levels, forcing the country to import refined petroleum products and natural gas from the U.S., according to a new report from S&P Global Platts, an energy data analysis and consulting firm. Imports of U.S. petroleum products are up 125 percent compared with 2016, and U.S. natural gas imports make up 60 percent of Mexico’s consumption this year, compared with just 22 percent in 2010.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Auto industry groups from Canada, Mexico and the United States are pushing back against the Trump administration’s demand for higher U.S. automotive content in a modernized North American Free Trade Agreement. 

At talks underway this week in Washington, automaker and parts groups from all three countries were urging negotiators against tighter rules of origin, said Eduardo Solis, president of the Mexican Automotive Industry Association. 

But U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer confirmed the industry’s fears that the administration of President Donald Trump was seeking major changes to these rules to try to reduce the U.S. trade deficit with Mexico. 

“Rules of origin, particularly on autos and auto parts, must require higher NAFTA content and substantial U.S. content. Country of origin should be verified, not ‘deemed,'” Lighthizer said on Wednesday in opening remarks. 

Mexican Economy Minister Ildefonso Guajardo and Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland both said they were not in favor of specific national rules of origin within NAFTA – a position that the industry agrees with. 

“We certainly think a U.S.-specific requirement would greatly complicate the ability of companies, particularly small- and medium-size enterprises, to take advantage of the benefits of NAFTA,” said Matt Blunt, president of the American Automotive Policy Council. The trade group represents Detroit automakers General Motors Co (GM.N) Ford Motor Co (F.N) and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCHA.MI). 

His comments were echoed by Flavio Volpe, president of Canada’s Automotive Parts Manufacturers Association. 

“Anytime you say this list or a part of this list has to come from one specific country you’re going to hurt all three countries,” he said. 

The United States had an autos and auto parts trade deficits of $74 billion with Mexico and $5.6 billion with Canada, both major components of overall U.S. goods trade deficits with its North American neighbors — deficits that Lighthizer said could no longer continue. 

Lighthizer’s mention of tightening verification requirements is a reference to expanding the parts tracing list, which is used to determine whether companies meet the 62.5 percent North American content requirement for autos and 60 percent for components. 

Devised in the early 1990s, the tracing list covers almost none of the sophisticated electronics found in today’s cars and trucks, most of which come from Asia. Putting these on the tracing list could force suppliers to source these components from North America or pay tariffs on them. 

Volpe said any changes to this must also capture the North American system design work and software content for these components that is not currently included. 

“A car today probably has 25 to 30 percent advanced electronics, software content in it. In 1994, it had zero or 1 percent,” Volpe said. “Could you address the tracing to help you get to NAFTA compliance level by capturing some of the work that’s being done in Silicon Valley or Waterloo, Canada? Yes.” 

John Bozzella CEO of the Association of Global Automakers, which represents international-brand carmakers, said NAFTA has allowed a major expansion of auto exports, with more than 1 million more vehicles built annually in the United States than in 1993. 

“Negotiators should be mindful of this success as they work to modernize the agreement,” Bozzella said, whose organization represents international brand carmakers with U.S. plants, including Toyota Motor Corp (7203.T), Honda Motor Co Ltd (7267.T) and BMW (BMWG.DE).