AMHERST, N.Y. — Richard Lipsitz, who heads the Western New York Area Labor Federation AFL-CIO, and Buffalo State economist Fred Floss are cautiously waiting to see how the negotiations this week on a new trade deal between the U.S. and Canada will go.

"(Do we really need to redo NAFTA?) Probably not. NAFTA was working reasonably well. We can argue about whether or not it caused manufacturing jobs to move to Mexico. The big one here in Western New York was obviously Trico that happened in the 1980s," said Floss.

Floss worries a new agreement with Canada could hurt the regional economy.

"Changing NAFTA, the major thing that we're doing is creating risk. And for Buffalo, the deals with Canada are critically important because if companies aren’t sure that we're going to trade with Canada, if they're not going to be able to sell their good at a cheap price because of tariffs and things like that they're not going to come to Buffalo and create jobs and build companies here," said Floss.

"From the very beginning the labor movement warned that NAFTA would create an unfair race to the bottom," said Lipsitz.

Lipsitz says under NAFTA many U.S. companies moved their plants to Mexico, where the labor costs were cheaper. While he says he's hasn't seen the details of the proposed changes, Lipsitz says he'd like to see an agreement that protects all workers.         

"We're in favor of a fair trade policy which will lead to wages and benefits and living standards that are improved, not hurt," said Lipsitz.

Last week President Trump said he's willing to move forward with a bilateral agreement with Mexico if a deal can't be struck with Canada. Trump says he wants to have a new deal signed by the end of November, when Mexico's president leaves office.