NAFTA negotiating teams will keep bargaining through the weekend in an effort to get a deal by early May.

The political ministers leading the process are currently leaving Washington, but will be back next week.

Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland calls it a perpetual negotiating round.

She said the talks continue to focus primarily on automobiles, which she describes as the heart of the new agreement.

Sources say negotiators are now extremely close to an agreement on that issue and are discussing fine details.

However, Mexico's Ildefonso Guajardo said a new NAFTA will be about more than cars and that negotiators are well advanced in adjustments to telecommunications, energy and digital trade rules.

This is from the 20 April 2018 edition of CBC News.