NAFTA talks start this week: Meet the U.S. lead negotiator who praised the deal
WASHINGTON — While the U.S. president trashes NAFTA as a one-sided, job-killing disaster possibly worth scrapping, the man who will lead the American negotiating team when talks start this week is an old proponent of the accord.
U.S. chief negotiator John Melle has sung NAFTA’s praises in the past.
He’s a career bureaucrat and unlike the boss in several ways: mastery of details, encyclopedic knowledge of Canada and Mexico, understated sense of humour and a work vocabulary that forgoes talk of good guys versus bad.
Melle’s worldview, according to friends, is that nobody’s a saint when it comes to free trade; everyone’s a bit of a protectionist sinner, and, if their mutual interests align, they just might get along and get a deal.