WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — On Wednesday, US, Canadian and Mexican officials started the first of seven rounds of meetings to renegotiate NAFTA. Vice President Mike Pence said during a speech later in the day that he was confident that the United States would be able to "modernize NAFTA and bring it into the 21st century."
"If the parties are willing to compromise, there is an opportunity to improve NAFTA," Schirach, who is also the president of the Global Policy Institute (GPI) said on Thursday. "But if there is a negative approach, it is easy to tear apart this free trade area linking the three economies of North America."
NAFTA, which was created in 1994 needed to be updated and improved, but only if the negotiators, including the United States were committed to improving it not wrecking it, Schirach added.
"It is not a bad idea to look at ways to improve NAFTA," he said. "What is not entirely clear at this early stage in the process is the spirit animating the American negotiators."
"Among the many issues that will be addressed by the US, Mexican and Canadian negotiators, in my opinion ‘rules of origin,’ ‘dispute resolution’ and ‘government procurement’ stand out," he stated.
US negotiators were critical of NAFTA’s current "dispute resolution" mechanism because many look at it as a binding arbitration process which amounts to an infringement of US sovereignty, Schirach pointed out.
"The other NAFTA countries would like to preserve it. Is compromise possible?" he asked.
The NAFTA negotiators would also have to wrestle with the issue of public procurement and government contracts, Schirach continued.
"Public procurement is another sticky issue. The three countries would like to have free and equal access to public procurement bids held within NAFTA," he said.
"This would include government contracts. This is obviously against the spirit of wide open procurement with a bidding process open to all firms within NAFTA," he said.
US Special Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer harshly criticized the current state of the 1994 NAFTA agreement at a news conference when talks to renegotiate it opened in Washington earlier on Wednesday.
