Renegotiating NAFTA would be "an error": Bush

Renegotiating NAFTA would be "an error": Bush

U.S. President George W. Bush said on Wednesday that his government would not renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement.

"In my opinion it would be an error to renegotiate NAFTA," Bush said, adding that the agreement has been running well and it already contains a mechanism to handle problematic topics.

Wednesday was Bush's last day in Mexico, and the last day of the five-nation Latin American tour that began last Wednesday in Brazil and visited Uruguay, Colombian and Guatemala. He arrived on Monday in Merida, the capital city of the eastern Mexican state of Yucatan.

Bush held a series of meetings with Mexican President Felipe Calderon, promising to extend the free trade agreement between the two nations.

Calderon told reporters after the talks that the two had agreed to set up working groups seeking a broader agreement, which will include sensitive products like corn and beans. Bush said that neither nation is seeking to weaken free trade, instead they are seeking to increase it and boost border security.

Mexican agricultural producers have been complaining about subsidies that U.S. producers enjoy, saying that the subsidies harm their products' competitiveness in the U.S. market.

Bush has said the best way to resolve such problems was through negotiations, and there should be no attempt to weaken the agreement so that both sides can benefit from it.

NAFTA includes three members -- the United States, Mexico and Canada, and was in force on Jan. 1, 1994. The United States is Mexico's largest trading partner, while Mexico is the U.S.'s third largest, after China and Canada.

Source: Xinhua