Trump tells reporters NAFTA deal is “pretty close”

Saul Loeb | AFP | Getty Images

President Donald Trump and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau walk down the West Wing Colonnade between meetings at the White House in Washington, DC, February 13, 2017.

A deal on NAFTA is “getting pretty close,” President Donald Trump told reporters at the White House on Thursday.

That said, a renegotiated trade deal between the U.S., Mexico and Canada is probably “weeks or months away,” Trump added.

The seemingly contradictory guidance comes as Vice President Mike Pence is set to head to the Summit of the Americas in Lima, Peru, where he will meet with leaders from around the region. Trump canceled plans to attend himself earlier this week. He was expected to use the meeting to show a sign of progress with his Mexican and Canadian counterparts on renegotiating the 24-year-old trade deal.

On Thursday, Trump told the White House press corps there wasn’t a timeline for NAFTA talks. In recent days there had been some signs of progress, as the parties push to get something finished before Mexico’s presidential election in July.

GOP lawmakers have been concerned about the Trump administration’s escalating trade rhetoric with China and its effect on American agriculture. The U.S. farm belt could be particularly hard hit by a trade war with China, which has threatened retaliatory tariffs on a bunch of farm products.

Trump told reporters on Thursday, however, that farmers have been hurt by bad trade deals but added China is now selling a lot of U.S. beef because of a conversation he had with China’s President Xi Jinping.