GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) — The North American Free Trade Agreement is more than 20 years old and needs to be updated: that was the message from Counsel General of Canada Douglas George Monday.
He talked to more than a hundred business leaders in Grand Rapids to extol the virtue of the three-way agreement and impress upon them the importance of renegotiating the pact.
From the counsel general’s position NAFTA has been good for Canada, Mexico and the United States. That view has been disputed by President Donald Trump, who calls the deal unfair to the U.S. and promised to rework or even scrap the agreement.
Talks are going on now to modernize the pact. It’s unclear what the final agreement will be, but George said NAFTA should stay in place.
“I think if NAFTA were to disappear, it would negatively affect all three economies. If you’re wanting to improve the U.S.’s position, make it more competitive in the world, better able to compete with China and other countries, you do better in a larger group. NAFTA is the largest trading block in the world,” George said.
West Michigan economic development agency The Right Place, Inc. helped facilitate George’s Monday visit to Grand Valley State University’s Grand Rapids campus.
Right Place CEO Birgit Klohs said she and the group normally steer clear of weighing in on policy, but that this particular agreement is too important to West Michigan and the economy to ignore.
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