Lighthizer, Freeland and Guajardo Want Their Own Nafta Book Club

(Bloomberg) -- The relationship between Nafta’s top three trade chiefs is so chummy they’re joking about starting a book club. Canada’s Chrystia Freeland playfully floated the notion in Newfoundland Tuesday while sidestepping a question over whether U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer has ever personally repeated President Donald Trump’s threat to quit Nafta.

High-level talks to rewrite the 1994 trade pact have been so friendly that “Bob and Ildefonso and I are thinking of establishing a Nafta book club, because at our suppers the night before we’ve been discussing our favorite books,” Freeland said, referring to Mexican Economy Minister Ildefonso Guajardo. The third round of Nafta revamp talks are Sept. 23-27 in Ottawa. Freeland may not have to look far for recommended material: her own 2012 book is titled “Plutocrats: The Rise of the New Global Super-Rich and the Fall of Everyone Else.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Josh Wingrove in Ottawa at jwingrove4@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Sarah McGregor at smcgregor5@bloomberg.net, Randall Woods