U.S. declaration to exit USMCA to start a decade-long countdown for the pact

FILE PHOTO: Flags of the U.S., Canada and Mexico fly next to each other in Detroit, Michigan, U.S. August 29, 2018. REUTERS/Rebecca Cook/File Photo

WASHINGTON, June 30 - U.S. President Donald Trump's administration is expected to formally declare on Wednesday that it will not extend the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement on trade, starting a decade-long clock to wind down the 32-year-old North American free trade zone as the three countries haggle over proposed changes.

That declaration will kick off a six-year review session, part of a "sunset clause" negotiated by President Donald Trump's first administration. However, it will do little to alter contentious negotiations over the pact's future, including sweeping demands to boost U.S. and regional content in North American automotive production and trade protections to block Chinese goods from benefiting from USMCA.

Trade chiefs from the U.S., Mexico and Canada are expected to meet virtually on Wednesday and declare whether they want to extend the pact for another 16 years. U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer has already scheduled a third round of negotiations with Mexico for the week of July 20, signaling his intent to keep pushing for changes.

"We expect July 1st to come and go, and for the United States to not confirm its wish to extend," said Greta Peisch, a former USTR general counsel who is now a trade partner at Wiley Rein in Washington.

Peisch added that it's unclear "whether the U.S. says exactly what it's looking for in a public way" in a statement expected after the meeting.

Failure to reach agreement on revisions to USMCA would keep the trade pact in an indefinite limbo, with similar review sessions annually for the next 10 years, after which the North American trade pact would expire on July 1, 2036.

The review and sunset process, which was considered controversial when it was enacted, is separate from a termination clause that U.S. President Donald Trump or his Mexican and Canadian counterparts could exercise, triggering a U.S. withdrawal from the pact within six months.

Trump, whose first administration negotiated USMCA to replace the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement, hailed its 2020 launch as "the fairest, most balanced, and beneficial trade agreement we have ever signed into law."

But he quickly soured on USMCA as the U.S. goods trade deficit with Mexico expanded, partly because companies shifted supply chains away from China after he imposed steep tariffs on Chinese goods. Trump frequently says that he doesn't want to renew USMCA, favoring instead the steep tariffs that