Article content

OTTAWA — Canada’s ambassador to the United States said Monday he believes NAFTA negotiators can reach an agreement in principle by the end of March.

The upbeat assessment from envoy David MacNaughton comes in the face of the continuing threat from U.S. President Donald Trump to blow up the deal, which hangs over the final eight weeks in the current negotiating schedule.

We apologize, but this video has failed to load.

tap here to see other videos from our team. Try refreshing your browser, or NAFTA deal possible by end of March, says Canadian envoy MacNaughton Back to video

MacNaughton refused to speculate on whether Trump is likely to pull out of NAFTA, but he said enough progress has been made on the “wiring and plumbing” of the agreement that all three countries can iron out their differences on the more substantial issues in the next two months.

“I would love to see a deal done,” the envoy said after an event in Ottawa with his U.S. counterpart, Kelly Craft. “We’ve made tremendous progress on some of the less spectacular things.”

Craft said little about the substance of the negotiations in her appearance with MacNaughton during a staged question-and-answer session at a conference on North American energy. But the two ambassadors did laud their close co-operation and the ties of friendship between Canada and the U.S.