Uncertainty over ongoing Nafta negotiations is creating angst among Royal Bank of Canada’s business clients even as markets appear to shrug off the risks, Chief Executive Officer David McKay said.
“Some of our commercial customers remain concerned about it,” McKay said Friday during the bank’s quarterly earnings call. “It’s certainly impacting longer-term investment decisions that we see customers making.”
McKay said there’s a “reasonable probability” that the 180-day notice to withdraw from the pact will be invoked.
“At that point, I still think there’s a good runway to negotiate this and I still think the markets will largely anticipate a good outcome and look through that,” he said. “But you’ll see some volatility through this process.”
In the meantime, “customers who have to make long-term investments are obviously hedging and thinking twice about it and we all hope this gets resolved in the near term.”