WASHINGTON _ President Donald Trump's top advisers are embroiled in a debate over how aggressively to proceed on reshaping U.S. participation in the North American Free Trade Agreement, with hard-liners favoring a threatened withdrawal as soon as this week and others advocating for a more measured approach to reopening negotiations with Canada and Mexico.
Some of Trump's advisers want a dramatic move before Trump's 100th day in office on Saturday to fulfill a key campaign promise, while others say he can let the milestone pass and revisit the issue later through more formal procedures, according to two White House officials who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.
It was not clear Wednesday night which camp would prevail.
"There are some people in the West Wing who want to sign it tomorrow and some people that say, 'Hold on, we've got to do this the right way,'" one of the officials said.
The dispute played out in media reports Wednesday, with several outlets saying Trump would take the most dramatic step available to him _ issuing an order declaring his intention to withdraw from the treaty. In this case, threatening to withdraw amounts to a formal step that starts the process of giving Mexico and Canada six months' notice that Trump intends to start negotiating.
Trump also could take a more low-key step, asking the two other nations to open negotiations to talk about ways to make the deal more balanced from the U.S. perspective, which is allowed within the framework of the treaty. Trump must give Congress 90 days' notice that he seeks to renegotiate the accord.
Under NAFTA, the U.S. can withdraw from the treaty after giving six months' notice to Canada and Mexico. Threatening to do so would signal to those countries that the U.S. is prepared to walk away, strengthening Trump's hand in any negotiations. It also may backfire, by leaving America without a deal if the parties can't clinch a new one.
Even talk that Trump would revisit NAFTA on Wednesday caused Mexico's peso, the Canadian dollar and shares of companies that rely on cross-border trade to plunge.
One of the questions facing White House aides is what steps are available to Trump at all, said the person familiar with the issue, such as what can be done under the confines of the law and according to rules dictated by the fast-track trade principles that govern such deals in Congress.
Trump has blamed NAFTA for hollowing out America's manufacturing sector by relocating jobs to lower-cost Mexico _ which the Trump administration initially said was the main target of changes sought to the accord.
Where Trump himself stands is hard to discern. After harsh rhetoric during the campaign, Trump in recent weeks has toned down his criticism of the deal, suggesting that the relationship with Canada only needs tweaking.
But this week he fueled trade tensions by imposing new duties on softwood lumber imports from Canada and vowing to defend U.S. farmers against dairy protections in Canada.
