U.S. Ambassador to the World Trade Organization, Michael Punke, will participate in an Oct. 13 meeting with WTO counterparts on the Trade in Services Agreement, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative said in its weekly schedule. Later that day, Punke will meet in Geneva with Secretary General of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) Secretariat, John Scanlon. On Oct. 14, USTR Michael Froman will join a presidential advisory council on African trade opportunities. The same day, Froman will meet with members of the trade advisory committees, and later Froman will deliver a speech on the Trans-Pacific Partnership to the New Democrat Network. Also on Oct. 14, Deputy USTR Robert Holleyman will give remarks to an International Cablemakers Federation meeting on the Obama administration’s trade agenda. To wrap up the week, Froman will speak at a National Foreign Trade Council event.
Three officials at the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative are in the process of departing the agency, said a USTR spokesman and industry officials. The highest-ranking member of that departing squad, Acting Deputy USTR Wendy Cutler, will join the Asian Society Policy Institute on Nov. 2, that organization said in a release (here). "Wendy has worked tirelessly to open new markets in Asia for American workers and businesses," he said USTR Michael Froman in a statement. "I’ve been privileged and honored to serve with her for the past few years, as she helped lead TPP negotiations to a successful conclusion." Marisa Lago, a Treasury Department official, was nominated to formally take over the deputy USTR title, though Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, threatened to block the Lago nomination over transparency concerns (see 1508170017).
The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative on Oct. 7 issued a Federal Register notice (here) announcing the results of its 2014 Generalized System of Preferences review. A Presidential Proclamation that took effect Oct. 1 implemented the results of the review (here), including the removal of the Seychelles, Uruguay and Venezuela from GSP eligibility, the addition of five upland cotton products to the program, and new and revoked competitive need limitations (CNL) waivers (see 1510010030). USTR detailed the results of its review in a document posted to its website (here).
The TaoBao online service of Alibaba should be relisted as a "notorious market," the American Apparel and Footwear Association said in an Oct. 5 filing with the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (here) and a news release (here). While the agency removed TaoBao from the list in 2012, the company should be added again due to its continued peddling of counterfeit products, said the AAFA. "Unfortunately, delisting TaoBao in 2012 did not lead to sustained improvements to the counterfeit problem. In fact, it has gotten worse," the trade group said. "Increased pressure is needed to fix this problem. Otherwise, counterfeits will only continue to proliferate worldwide as Alibaba continues to expand." The AAFA has pushed hard for regulators to address the company's counterfeit sales in recent years (see 1504100012). "While we have engaged in a dialogue with Alibaba for the past four years, and extensively for much of the past year, we have had little success in convincing Alibaba to craft a program that will rid TaoBao of counterfeits," it said. The annual USTR notorious markets list identifies "select online and physical marketplaces that reportedly engage in or facilitate substantial copyright piracy and trademark counterfeiting," it said.
The Taiwanese government has pledged to boost intellectual property protection and collaborate with the U.S. to “improve Taiwan’s investment climate,” the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative said in an Oct. 1 statement (here) following bilateral talks. The two countries share a trade and investment framework. Both sides pledged to expedite regulatory processing for medical devices and chemicals.
The U.S. will host a Trans-Pacific Partnership chief negotiator meeting in Atlanta from Sept. 26-29, followed by a ministerial from Sept. 29-Oct. 1, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative said on Sept. 24. The American Apparel and Footwear Association predicted both negotiation rounds in recent days (see 1509220048).
The U.S. will participate in the ninth round of Environmental Goods Agreement negotiations from Sept. 16-22 in Geneva, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative said in its weekly schedule. Also this week, USTR Michael Froman will meet on Sept. 15 with Elzbieta Bienkowska, the European Union commissioner for industry and small and medium-sized businesses, in Washington. U.S. chief agriculture negotiator Darci Vetter will meet on the same day with the National Association of Wheat Growers in Washington. On Sept. 16, Froman will speak at the Semiconductor Industry Association. Then from Sept. 18-19 Froman will participate in an annual meeting for the U.S.-Spain Council in St. Augustine, Florida.
The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative is asking for input as it builds its 2015 Notorious Markets List (here). The list is an out-of-cycle review based off the annual Special 301 Report. The list identifies “online and physical marketplaces that reportedly engage in and facilitate substantial copyright piracy and trademark counterfeiting,” the USTR notice said. Those commercial areas include foreign trade zones, said USTR. The 2014 Notorious Markets List, which published in March, identified counterfeit marketplaces across the globe (see 1503060033). Comments are due by Oct. 5. USTR prefers comments be submitted through www.regulations.gov, docket number USTR-2015-0016.
U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman will meet with the interagency Advisory Committee for Trade Policy and Negotiations on Sept. 8, the Office of the USTR said in its weekly schedule. Later that day, Froman will meet with Chairman of Vietnamese National Assembly Nguyen Sinh Hung. The U.S. is poised to allow some additional flexibilities on apparel groupings in the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a critical demand from Vietnam and U.S. apparel importers (see 1508310064). Froman will then meet with a high-ranking Indonesian government official on Sept. 9. That country is not party to TPP. To top off the week, USTR for Small Business Christina Sevilla will speak to a small business conference in San Francisco on Sept. 11.
The Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement should “not include measures restricting adoption of the Copyright Office’s recent proposals regarding orphan works,” said five groups in an Aug. 31 letter to U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman (here). Orphan works are books, articles, photos, recordings and other documents that are protected by copyright held by an unknown owner. The Register of Copyrights issued a report in May that included a “variety of proposals to expand access to copyrighted works,” said the letter, signed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Creative Commons, Authors Alliance, Knowledge Economy International and New Media Rights. The proposals aren't law and it’s possible Congress won't act or embrace a new approach entirely, it said. Though the groups that signed the letter vary in their preferences to how the issue should be remedied, all asked that the “TPP not adopt measures that would prevent Congress from enacting these or other such provisions should they be needed at some point to expand access to orphaned copyrighted works.”