Welcome back to Global Overview, where we cover the fate of USA-Mexico-Canada trade agreement, directly United States-Iran technical negotiations on the Strait of Hormuz, and joint Japan-India efforts to strengthen supply security.
From ‘Good Deal’ to Not Good Enough
The US decided on Wednesday not to renew it three-way trade agreement and Mexico and Canada. “We are not going to renew the rubber stamp, not in its current form,” a senior US administration official told reporters. Instead, Washington opted to hold an annual review of the deal’s terms until it expires in 2036, paving the way for more comprehensive negotiations that could cost nearly $2 trillion in goods and services annually.
Welcome back to Global Overview, where we cover the fate of USA-Mexico-Canada trade agreement, directly United States-Iran technical negotiations on the Strait of Hormuz, and joint Japan-India efforts to strengthen supply security.
From ‘Good Deal’ to Not Good Enough
The US decided on Wednesday not to renew it three-way trade agreement and Mexico and Canada. “We are not going to renew the rubber stamp, not in its current form,” a senior US administration official told reporters. Instead, Washington opted to hold an annual review of the deal’s terms until it expires in 2036, paving the way for more comprehensive negotiations that could cost nearly $2 trillion in goods and services annually.
US President Donald Trump first proposed the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) during the G-20 summit in 2018 as an option to replace the North American Free Trade Agreement, which he had said was not beneficial to the US. “USMCA is the fairest, most balanced, and beneficial trade agreement we have ever signed into law,” Trump he told it followers in 2020 after its implementation. “It’s the best deal we’ve ever made.”
Mexico and Canada were similarly pleased with the deal. In the weeks leading up to Wednesday’s renewal deadline, Mexico City and Ottawa expressed their interest in extending the deal.
However, Trump has since pain in his own opinion, insisting that it has not done enough to stop exports and has contributed to the United States’ trade deficit with both countries. “We don’t need anything that Canada has, we don’t need anything that Mexico has, but they need everything that we have,” Trump said in June. “You have to treat us better.”
“Although the trade deficit is an accounting constraint, it takes the attention of Trump and therefore his business team,” FP’s Keith Johnson told World Brief. Since taking office in January 2025, the White House has tried to raise tariffs to force Mexico and Canada into what it sees as fair trade practices. Still a Decision of the United States Supreme Court in February that rejected Trump’s global tariffs has blocked these efforts, forcing the administration to find alternative methods to make Mexico City and Ottawa pay.
By instituting an annual review of the USMCA, Washington is opening the door to new business negotiations and his neighbors. The United States and Mexico have already started the talks, with the third round scheduled to begin in Mexico City on July 20. the same conversation while Ottawa has yet to begin, as Trump’s tariffs and repeated threats to make Canada the “51st state” of the United States have damaged bilateral relations.
New talks are expected to focus on encouraging measures more American factories. One such scenario would require half of the vehicle’s components to be made in the United States in order for the company to receive reduced tax rates. However, the senior US administration official told reporters on Wednesday that it is difficult to consider an exemption from steel and aluminum tariffs as the goal is to reduce the US trade deficit.
The Trump administration will “continue to work with Mexico and Canada to address deficiencies in the Agreement,” the US Trade Representative said. Jamieson Greer he said Wednesday.
At the same time, the United States will have to walk a fine line between wanting Mexico and Canada to pursue trade reforms and not pushing both countries into China’s arms. “For national security reasons … I want to have our supply chain out of this world,” Greer said in May.
Yet the Secretary of the Economy of Mexico Marcelo Ebrard he warned last week that the annual review could lead to instability that could make it difficult for Mexico City to shed its dependence on Beijing. “If you drag us into a constant review process, you will reduce the investment,” Ebrard said. “That completely defeats the purpose of replacing your Asian suppliers. You can’t have it both ways.”
Today’s Most Read
What we’re after
Indirect conversation of Hormuz. American and Iranian mediators were held indirect technical talk in Doha, Qatar, Wednesday focused on determining control of the Strait of Hormuz. Tehran maintains that it has sole authority over the strategic waterway, through which about a fifth of the world’s oil normally passes, and has pushed for the right to levy tolls on ships passing through the channel. However, Washington insists that no country should have exclusive control over the strait and that charging tolls violates international law.
Indirect talks began on Tuesday, where US envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner met with Qatari negotiators including the country’s prime minister. The Qatari nationals also met with Iranian officials, led by Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi, who reportedly prioritized the possible release of frozen Iranian assetsas promised under the agreement between the United States and Iran. There are no plans for live meetings in the near future.
But with both sides still at loggerheads, concerns are growing that heavy fighting could prevail, especially after US and Iranian forces engage. tit-for-tat strike at the end of the week. Even Trump has reportedly considered returning an all-out war and Iran, holding numerous talks with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and General Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in recent days.
International markets are still visible most hopeful. West Texas Intermediate crude on Wednesday hit its lowest price since March, hitting below $69 a barrel. Brent futures also fell to around $72 a barrel.
LNG Partnership. Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi are expected to sign a business plan which would strengthen the security of the supply chain, especially for liquefied natural gas (LNG), during the summit that started on Wednesday. The agreement would direct Tokyo and New Delhi to establish a joint task force to coordinate LNG storage, promote information sharing, and improve energy cooperation. Both countries hope to minimize the impact of the Iran war, as the instability in the Strait of Hormuz has caused major disruption. global energy markets.
The three-day summit of the two leaders, held in India, is also expected to touch on issues of artificial intelligence, precious metals, drugs and drug distribution equipment as well as regional security issues, such as the efforts of strengthen Quadrilateral Security Dialogue and countering China’s influence in the Indo-Pacific. Takaichi hopes so Japan’s close relationship with India will help deal with Beijing.
Bilateral trade in the financial year 2025-26 was reached 27.5 billion dollarswith Japanese investment in India totaling $3.2 billion between April and December 2025. Tokyo is among New Delhi’s biggest investors, and last year, Takaichi pledged to more than double his country’s investment to more than $61 billion over the next decade.
Political goals. Three bombings early Wednesday targeted members of Greece’s ruling New Democracy party. According to local authorities, crude explosives using camping gas cylinders were discovered outside the residence of several party members in the city of Thessaloniki. At least one person was to be killed and four others are hospitalized, including parliamentary candidate Afroditi Nestora, who is being treated for burns, along with her family members.
“The world of the New Democracy is not afraid,” Konstantinos Kyranakis, secretary of the political committee of the conservative party, he wrote on X. The bombings were “a complete terrorist attack on the homes of New Democracy administrators,” Kyranakis said, as “those who carried them out intended to kill.”
Politically motivated attacks from time to time in Greece, although attacks on symbols of power and wealth rarely result in injury. However, in June 2024, a petrol bomb injured a police officer guarding the house of the chief judge in Athens, and about a year later, a bomb outside the residence of the president of the Greek prison guards union caused minor injuries to two people.
Odds and Ends
Trump earned at least $2.2 billion in the first year of his second term, including nearly $1.4 billion from his family’s cryptocurrency businesses, a new filing released Tuesday showed. exposed. That’s a big increase from the roughly $622 million his businesses took in in 2024. Trump and his relatives have repeatedly been accused of using the White House to boost deals with foreign governments, including 500 million dollar deal and an investment company associated with the United Arab Emirates. Trump on Wednesday dismissed such concerns, saying journalists that he has “money that uses my money” and that “I have never even spoken to them.”
