Parties to the revised World Trade Organization procurement agreement will formally admit the Netherlands with respect to Aruba on Oct. 31, following that territory’s submission of all necessary documents over recent months, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative said (here). Aruba is part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. The WTO Agreement on Government Procurement entered into force on April 5 for the U.S., European Union, Canada, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Iceland, Israel, Liechtenstein, Norway and Singapore. Japan acceded to the pact in mid-April. Each country must wait 30 days after it adopts the revised agreement and notifies the WTO, before the revised agreement can enter into force. Negotiators finalized the terms of the agreement in 2012. The pact aims to ensure governments treat procurement competition with transparency and fairness.

The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative is asking for comments to help compile its 2014 Out-of-Cycle Review of Indian intellectual property protections. USTR committed to the review in late April in its Special 301 Watch List report, but did not label India a Priority Foreign Country, the most severe classification of an intellectual property rights violator. The pharmaceutical industry pushed USTR to slap that label on India, but USTR officials said they were eyeing changes in the new Indian government. The country elected Narendra Modi prime minister in May. U.S. industry is cautiously hoping the Modi government will support the World Trade Organization facilitation agreement, as well as intellectual property reform in the country (see 14100624). The public must submit comments to USTR by Oct. 31, while foreign governments are allowed to comment until Nov. 7. USTR prefers comments are submitted through www.regulations.gov, docket number USTR-2014-0020. A U.S. intellectual property rights advocate pushed India to remove its compulsory license rules for pharmaceuticals during an Oct. 3 National Foreign Trade Council event.

U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman will meet with World Trade Organization Director-General Roberto Azevêdo on Oct. 10 in Washington, D.C., the Office of the USTR said. The U.S., WTO leadership and many WTO members are continuing to push for a compromise that will resolve the Trade Facilitation Agreement impasse. The same day Acting Deputy USTR Wendy Cutler will travel to Japan to meet with Japanese trade officials on Trans-Pacific Partnership market access and auto negotiations. USTR Chief Agricultural Negotiator Darci Vetter will later join Cutler. The U.S. and Japan have battled for the better part of 2014 over Japanese agricultural market access in TPP (see 14100601).

U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman will head to San Antonio, Texas on Oct. 6 to attend a trade event with Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Texas, and another with Rep. Pete Gallego, D-Texas, the Office of the USTR said in its weekly schedule update. Froman will then on Oct. 7 meet with Chilean Director of General of International Economic Relations Andres Rebolledo in Washington, D.C. Chile is a negotiating partner in the Trans-Pacific Partnership. On Oct. 8, the USTR chief will sit down with Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Gina McCarthy and Department of Interior Secretary Sally Jewell to discuss environmental issues, and later in the day Froman will meet with AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka. Following that, Froman will hold talks with Bangladesh Ambassador to the United States Mohammad Ziauddin. Froman will meet with a number of high-ranking European officials on Oct. 10.

The U.S. and European trade delegations hammered out more details of Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) talks during the negotiating round last week outside Washington, D.C., with progress made on technical and food safety regulations as well as the services sector, said the U.S. and European Union chief negotiators after the talks wrapped up on Oct. 3. Chief U.S. negotiator Dan Mullaney emphasized that the two sides will not harmonize their chemical regulations regimes, but will work hard to set up a system across the Atlantic that avoids regulatory duplication. Mullaney hit back at concerns over an investor-state dispute provision in a final agreement, saying the agreement will not jeopardize government efforts to protect the environment, consumers, health and safety. The “regulatory pillar of TTIP” is poised to give the most benefit to the U.S. and EU of all the topics negotiated, said EU chief negotiator Ignacio Garcia-Bercero, while adding that the two sides discussed trade facilitation during the round. Garcia-Bercero said the new European Commission will be strongly supportive of the TTIP negotiations, after it takes over Nov. 1. New European Union trade chief Cecilia Malmstrom called for a restart in negotiations during her confirmation hearing on Sept. 29 (see 14093025).

U.S. trade chief Michael Froman signaled a willingness to continue to work with Japanese negotiators to liberalize Japan’s markets through the Trans-Pacific Partnership, saying on Oct. 2 that the U.S. has also battled over the years to reform its own economic structure. Despite a reportedly fruitless meeting with Japanese cabinet official Akira Amari in recent days, U.S. Trade Representative Froman said the U.S. is “very fortunate” to have Amari as his counterpart. Both the U.S. and Japan said no progress was made during the Sept. 23-24 talks between Froman and Amari (see 14092514).

The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative is asking for comments on Kuwaiti intellectual property rights protections, as part of its out-of-cycle review on the country. USTR said it would conduct the review when it published its Special 301 report for 2014 in late April (see 14050101). The agency designated Kuwait a “Watch List” country, which is two steps below the most severe USTR classification of an IPR violator. The review will focus mostly on copyright legislation and IPR enforcement. The Special 301 report advised Kuwait to amend its copyright legislation to meet international standards and continue its enforcement regime on copyright piracy and trademark infringement. Comments are due by Oct. 15, and should be submitted via www.regulations.gov, docket number USTR-2014-0019.

The U.S. and Brazil reached a compromise on a long-running trade dispute involving U.S. cotton subsidies and agricultural export credit guarantees, said U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack on Oct. 1. Brazil agreed to not challenge those U.S. policies at the World Trade Organization. The Brazilian government threatened in February to hit back against the U.S. subsidies, saying they had already developed a retaliation list, but that threat petered out over the following months (see 14011425). After the dispute process launched in 2002, the WTO granted Brazil retaliation rights in 2009 (here). “American businesses, including agricultural businesses and producers, could have faced countermeasures in the way of increased tariffs totaling hundreds of millions of dollars every year,” said Vilsack a statement. “This removes that threat and ensures American cotton farmers will have effective risk management tools.” The statement did not give details on what the U.S. conceded in the agreement.

The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative is asking for public comment on country eligibility for the African Growth and Opportunity Act as part of an annual review of the preference program. The Department of Labor may also consider comments that relate to child labor in beneficiary countries. Comments must be submitted to USTR by Oct. 25 through http://www.regulations.gov, docket number USTR-2014-0018. The AGOA law requires countries to strive to meet the following criteria:

The U.S. will host the 7th round of Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) talks in Chevy Chase, Maryland from Sept. 29-Oct. 3. U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman will also meet on Sept. 29 with Australian Minister of Trade Andrew Robb and Peruvian Minister for Foreign Trade and Tourism Magali Silva, said USTR's weekly schedule. On Sept. 30, Froman will participate in the 2014 Global Services Summit, and then meet with Mohammad Ziauddin, ambassador of Bangladesh to the U.S. U.S. and European officials will also allow press access to TTIP industry presentations on Oct. 1. Chief negotiators will give a press conference on Oct. 3.