“It’s a good day for Canada,” Mr. Trudeau told reporters as he left a special Sunday night cabinet meeting at his offices to go over the framework of the agreement.
Nafta 2.0—to be officially called the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, or USMCA—makes significant changes to the rulebook that has governed continental commerce since 1994. The biggest impact is expected to be on the region’s largest industry, autos, requiring a greater portion of vehicles to be made in North America and with high-wage labor in the U.S. and Canada.
The new deal also for the first time sets rules for financial-services and digital businesses that have emerged since the bloc was created, aimed at pleasing sectors from drugmakers to Wall Street.
One of Canada’s last-minute concessions made to finalize the broader agreement was a pledge to curb protection for its dairy industry, a policy Mr. Trump has frequently criticized as unfairly restricting American exports.
The U.S. in turn compromised by dropping its demands to scrap the original treaty’s Chapter 19 provisions, or the special Nafta courts allowing member states to challenge trade restrictions imposed by the others.
Despite the upbeat official rhetoric, much work remains before a new Nafta takes effect. The agreement must win ratification by the U.S. Congress, where trade deals have become increasingly difficult to pass. Mr. Trump is gambling that he can win over long-skeptical Democrats with changes embraced by U.S. labor unions, but he risks losing backing from free-trade Republicans unhappy with other revisions weakening protections for multinational companies’ overseas investments.
But the pact did get some surprising quick praise from some longtime free-trade critics generally skeptical of new trade agreements. “The new deal includes some important improvements which we have long advocated,” Lori Wallach, from the left-leaning Public Citizen and an influential leader in the antiglobalization movement over the past two decades, said in a statement.
