Hello I'm Simon Long, the finance editor of The Economist.

Welcome to Money Talks.

And today we're talking trade and what is driving the global economy.

NAFDA survives another round of talks.

They might finish it very quickly, but it's looking increasingly likely that actually this

could drag on for much longer and maybe spill over into 2019.

And we talked to Lord Jim O'Neill, the Brickman, a trend spotter if there was one.

We live in a 24-7 world.

Here am I on a podcast for what I often think is a written

form of media. And we discuss China, Brexit, globalisation and Goldman Sachs. First, the latest round of talks to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement between

the US, Canada and Mexico came to a close yesterday in Montreal and it looks as if NAFTA lives to fight another day

despite President Donald Trump's threats to leave it.

Mexico's economy secretary I'll de Franso Guajardo remained positive.

We are at a much better moment in this negotiation at this point.

Progress has been achieved in several areas of the negotiation, especially in those

chapters that aim to modernize NAFTA.

I'm joined now by Sumer Keynes, our trade and economics correspondent.

Sumer, is his optimism justified? I think so. I think so. I think I'd

summarize progress as a cautious okay. So I think this was meant to be the big round, right? They really wanted to get a sense of momentum in this round, close lots of chapters of the deal, so that they could maybe finish it before, essentially politics made finishing the thing impossible.

So we've got the Mexican elections that are coming and they really wanted to close this thing before then.

Now the real development I think recently over the last few weeks is it seems that Donald

Trump is becoming less impatient so he made a comment suggesting that oh you know maybe

...