Any talks to renew the North American Free Trade Agreement would involve all three member nations, a top Canadian official said..., dampening speculation the United States might seek to sit down with Canada first and then Mexico...

U.S. President Donald Trump - who says free trade treaties have cost countless thousands of American jobs - wants NAFTA to be renegotiated with a focus on cutting his country's large trade deficit with Mexico.

Trump says he needs only to tweak trade ties with Canada, prompting one Canadian official to suggest to a newspaper that Washington would want to negotiate with Ottawa first. Mexico opposes the idea, which trade experts say is almost unworkable...

Mexican Economy Minister Guajardo Ildefonso ..[said] the bulk of the NAFTA talks would have to be carried out on a trilateral basis to give investors confidence that the same set of investment rules applied everywhere.

Trump has revealed little about his intentions for NAFTA, which took effect in 1994, except that he wants large changes with Mexico.

The Mexican government expects the talks to start this summer... Former Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, who helped launch the original NAFTA talks, dismissed the idea that Canada might abandon Mexico to its fate...

This was excerpted from 21 February 2017 edition of Reuters.