Dallas News Blog

Former Dallas Mayor Ron Kirk at the U.S.-Africa Business Summit in D.C. earlier this month

​That is, unless you have business with former Dallas Mayor Ron Kirk, who, in his position as U.S. Trade Representative, will be holed up at the hotel Monday talking North American Free Trade Agreement. But, as Kirk cautioned in April, don't count on anyone "reopening" NAFTA any time soon. So, then, what's on the agenda? Let's ask the press release:

United States Trade Representative Ron Kirk will host two media events at the meeting of the Free Trade Commission of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in Dallas, Texas, on October 19, 2009. Ambassador Kirk will meet with his Ministerial colleagues, Canada's Trade Minister Stockwell Day and Mexico's Secretary of the Economy Gerardo Ruiz Mateos, to discuss ways to enhance our trading relationship and to ensure that the benefits of our trilateral economic relationship are widely shared and sustainable. Among the issues to be discussed is the relationship between trade, labor and the environment under the NAFTA.

On a semi-related note, Dallas Fed head Richard Fisher spoke at SMU this morning. Long story short, per The Wall Street Journal recap: "Fisher argued that despite a decline in global trade flows, globalization is still 'very much alive,' though the magnitude of the drop did come as a surprise."