WASHINGTON—Nobody “in his right mind” would want to jeopardize the smashing success that is the North American Free Trade Agreement, former prime minister Brian Mulroney told a U.S. Senate committee on Tuesday.

Mulroney made his remarks shortly before Republican senators offered their strongest show of support for NAFTA since Donald Trump became president. Thirty-five members of their 51-member caucus, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, sent the president a letter in which they said that continued economic prosperity requires him to update NAFTA rather than kill it.

“We write today to reaffirm the benefits of the North American Free Trade Agreement,” the senators began.

“The next step to advance the economy requires that we keep NAFTA in place, but modernize it to better reflect our 21st century economy,” they continued. “We look forward to working with you and your administration to make that modernization a reality and bring Americans even greater economic success.”

Mulroney, whose Progressive Conservative government negotiated NAFTA, has been advising Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on the renegotiation talks Trump initiated last year. He spoke to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee at the invitation of chairman Bob Corker, a Republican senator from Tennessee.

Corker concluded the hearing by saying he believes the Trump administration increasingly prefers modernization to termination.

Trump has repeatedly threatened to terminate NAFTA, which he has called the worst trade agreement in world history. But his rhetoric has become slightly less hostile in recent weeks.

Mulroney touted the “tens of millions of new jobs” created in Canada, the U.S. and Mexico since the agreement came into force in 1994. With the U.S. unemployment rate at a mere 4.1 per cent, “it is becoming increasingly difficult to seriously argue that the U.S. has done poorly with its international trade agreements,” he said in his prepared remarks.

From September: Former prime minister Brian Mulroney, one of the architects of NAFTA, met Friday with Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland on the renegotiations of the trade deal. Mulroney said NAFTA creates millions of jobs in the U.S. (The Canadian Press)

“Who in his right mind would want to place this in . . . jeopardy?” Mulroney interjected later, after Republican Sen. Todd Young (Indiana) noted the number of jobs in his state linked to continental auto trade. “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it . . . . We shouldn’t throw it away, because it’s working.”

Mulroney did not mention Trump. But after he rattled off statistics about the size of the trade relationship between Canada and the U.S, he warned against an irrational public debate driven by “fear and anger.”

Quoting former Republican president Ronald Reagan, with whom he initiated negotiations on the Canada-U.S. trade agreement that preceded NAFTA, Mulroney said, “Protectionism is destructionism.” While he conceded that NAFTA must be modernized, he said he fears that “some people,” whom he did not name, “are interested in making perfection the enemy of the good.”

“We’ve got a great trade agreement now,” he said.

Mulroney also said the U.S. would “lose” for declining to participate in the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement that includes Canada. And he told the senators that both the Canadian and American economies would benefit from more immigrants, whom he said bring dynamism and devotion.

Seven senators were present for Mulroney’s prepared remarks.

He spoke the day after the conclusion of the sixth round of NAFTA talks, this one in Montreal. The round ended with pro-NAFTA observers slightly more optimistic about the future of the deal than they had been after previous rounds.

While Trump’s trade chief, Robert Lighthizer, again criticized Canadian proposals, he acknowledged some progress and said the U.S. was committed to additional talks. The next round will likely be held in Mexico in late February.

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