Canada’s foreign minister is headed to Washington as the clock ticks down to reach a deal on updating the North American Free Trade Agreement that could pass Congress this year and skirt metals tariffs.

President Donald Trump’s latest trade salvo over steel and aluminum landed squarely in the middle of NAFTA talks, overshadowing efforts by his own negotiators and those from his biggest export markets to update America’s most important free-trade agreement.

After laying out the Trump administration’s most aggressive NAFTA demands to date, chief U.S. negotiator John Melle was asked on Oct. 15 how things are progressing. “Fabulous,” he said, smiling and shrugging before entering a negotiating room once more.

NAFTA talks have resumed with the U.S. administration looking increasingly isolated in its proposals to change the trade pact, as key figures raised the prospect of a collapse in negotiations.