Canada and Mexico will carry on their NAFTA trade links even if the United States announces its withdrawal, says Steve Verheulb, Canada's chief negotiator in the renegotiations.There has been speculation that Canada would abandon Mexico and seek a bilateral deal with the U.S. if the NAFTA talks break down. Trade experts have advised against such a move saying it would ruin Canada's reputation throughout the developing world.“We do have real opportunities to further advance our relationship under NAFTA with Mexico and we do have a commitment that if the U.S. was to withdraw from NAFTA we would maintain the NAFTA between Canada and Mexico,” Verheulb told the Commons international trade committee.Canada will not accept extreme American proposals on automobile content rules, government procurement, a five year sunset clause and weakening trade dispute resolution, Verheul said. These measures “would fundamentally weaken the benefits of NAFTA for Canada and undermine the competitiveness of the North American market in relation to the rest of the world.“North America obviously competes with the European Union and production from Asia, and we would be at a significant disadvantage if we were to lower the competitiveness of the North American region,” he said. “We do feel that some of the U.S. proposals go exactly in the direction of worsening our competitiveness, which is why this is priority for us to ensure that we do advance our competitiveness, not reduce it.“Enforceable trade commitments are essential and represent a critical part of any trade agreement including NAFTA,” he said. “Canada will not accept an outcome that is not respected as a fundamental concept of an effective enforcement of legal obligations.“The U.S. has also proposed the complete elimination of Canadian tariffs on dairy, poultry, and eggs, without suggesting the elimination of their own where in some cases they have even greater protections on products such as dairy, sugar, sugar cane products, and others,” he said. “This proposal is also unacceptable.”Even in the face of these unrealistic demands, Canada “remains committed to modernizing and improving NAFTA and we will continue to engage constructively with Mexico and with the U.S. with the aim of reaching mutually beneficial outcomes for a modern NAFTA that will continue to serve our exporters for decades to come,” he said.“We see significant opportunities in the agriculture and agrifood sector with Mexico. Mexico has significantly increased as an important partner in agriculture for us since before NAFTA came into effect. I think we export something like $4 billion worth of products to Mexico now in that area.“We have interests in other natural resource related sectors as well,” he said. “We have interests that we can expand in many other areas and we're working to do that.”While the countries have their differences, the NAFTA renegotiations have “strengthened the relationship between Canada and Mexico which can also lead to further interest in each other's market and the development of each other's markets.”Canada and Mexico went into the renegotiations from the same goal of improving NAFTA, he said. “We are looking for outcomes that will benefit all three parties and we are concerned about proposals that would go in the other direction, particularly some of the U.S. extreme proposals that are intended, at least, to focus benefits in the U.S. and not in the other parties.”The two countries “have been working closely with us on many of the practical areas—customs and trade facilitation, regulatory cooperation, good regulatory practices—a lot of the basic issues that actually make a real difference to stakeholders on both sides,” he said.“They've agreed with us and are supporting us where they can on labour but have difficulties in some other areas. But we discuss bilaterally with them quite frequently about the state of the negotiations and work jointly where we can on common proposals or common approaches to the negotiations.To keep Canada's positions well informed, “We've established a wide-reaching consultation mechanism that includes a steering committee and specific sectoral groups,” he said. “The sector-specific groups include agriculture, automotive and auto parts, civil society, culture, energy, infrastructure and government procurement, labour, metals, services and transportation.”Canada's ambition is for a NAFTA that “can fully address the challenges of the 21st Century. That means cutting red tape, harmonizing regulations where it makes sense, and making the flow of goods and services more efficient and effective for our businesses.”Alex Binkley is a freelance journalist and writes for domestic and international publications about agriculture, food and transportation issues. He's also the author of two science fiction novels with more in the works.