OTTAWA — The pressure on the Liberals to loosen protections around Canada’s dairy sector took new focus on Sunday as the key stumbling block in North American Free Trade Agreement talks came under scrutiny and spin on political talk shows on both sides of the border. A member of an influential Congressional panel — and a Donald Trump supporter — said in a Canadian interview that providing American dairy farmers with more access to the Canadian market may appease the president. To the south, Trump’s agriculture secretary suggested deeper concessions would be coming from the Canadians over Canada’s system of managing supply and prices in the dairy sector. How negotiations play out will determine the fate of numerous jobs and hundreds of billions in trade between the two nations. The hope is for a trilateral agreement in principle that Congress can approve before Mexico’s new president takes office on Dec. 1.

Source: National Post September 09, 2018 19:59 UTC