EU Trade Talks with Mexico, Japan Continue, Aiming for Deals in Near-Term

Negotiations for both an EU-Mexico trade deal upgrade and a new EU-Japan trade agreement continued last week, with officials in both contexts suggesting that these efforts are progressing steadily. Regarding the EU-Mexico economic agreement, last week’s talks in Brussels marked the third negotiating round. The focus of these efforts is to upgrade the 17-year-old Global Agreement , which some officials now say could be accomplished by the end of the year. "It's paramount. Right now there's no other issue, no other negotiation on top of the trade agenda for Mexico but this one," said Juan Carlos Baker, Mexican deputy foreign minister, to Reuters last week. Negotiations to update the existing accord began last year, with officials saying at the time that this effort would bring the deal in line with the new global trade and economic landscape. (See Bridges Weekly, 23 June 2016 ) The two trading partners have since been eager to advance the negotiations, producing a new accelerated schedule in February which includes this weeks’ talks. Amid the triggering of Article 50 for Brexit and the new US administration’s move towards more inward-focused policies, both EU and Mexican officials have said that these policy shifts abroad can also...