WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump says he's ready to start a major renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement, now that his trade czar has achieved his long-awaited confirmation by the U.S. Senate. The upper chamber voted with a large bipartisan majority Thursday to approve Robert Lighthizer, which gives the administration its U.S. trade representative and allows it to kickstart its NAFTA process. The president told an interview with The Economist that he intends to proceed quickly thereafter: Trump intends to file a 90-day notice with Congress, work with it on negotiating priorities, and start talks with Canada and Mexico later this year.

President Donald Trump says he's ready to start a major renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement. (Photo: Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images) "The clock starts ticking (with Lighthizer's confirmation)," Trump told the magazine, before the vote. The administration has begun signalling that it wants significant changes in a range of areas, including dairy, lumber, automobiles, pharmaceuticals and the dispute-resolution system. Trump interjected when an interviewer suggested it sounds like he wants a big renegotiation. "Big isn't a good enough word," the president replied. "Massive." But that desire for a "massive" renegotiation is butting up against the mundane realities of the political calendar. The U.S. and Mexico have both expressed a desire to get a deal by early next year, before the Mexican election. Few observers believe a substantive renegotiation is possible within a few months. Trump: I have a 'very good relationship' with Trudeau Trump repeated the story in that interview of how he almost withdrew from NAFTA last month. It's a story he's told several times. He described an amazing coincidence: Both Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and Mexico's Enrique Pena Nieto, called him one after the other, and both told him almost the same exact thing, urging him to reconsider. "I have a very good relationship with Justin and a very good relationship with the president of Mexico," Trump said. "It was an amazing thing. They called separately 10 minutes apart. I just put down the phone with the president of Mexico when the prime minister of Canada called. And they both asked almost identical questions: 'We would like to know if it would be possible to negotiate as opposed to a termination.' And I said, 'Yes, it is. Absolutely.' So we did that and we'll start." There's a simple explanation for that coincidence: It wasn't a coincidence.