The U.S. and European Union launched on Dec. 16 the third round of Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership negotiations, the USTR said in a press release. USTR is hosting the negotiating round in Washington D.C. The negotiating round will come to a close on Dec. 20, said USTR.
The U.S. is making progress in expanding the Japanese auto market for U.S. exporters, but negotiators have yet to achieve the access the U.S. requires in a final Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) pact, said U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) Michael Froman in a Dec. 10 conference call with reporters. “And on other market access issues, there is also further work to be done,” said Froman. Froman previously called for conclusion of TPP negotiations by the end of 2013 (see 13111516). However, TPP ministers and heads of delegation in a Dec. 10 statement conceded that target would not be met (see 13121017).
The ministers and heads of delegation for Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) participant nations pledged to reconvene next month after a four day summit in Singapore, said USTR in a Dec. 10 statement (here) that suggests the pact may not be sealed before the end of the year. The Obama Administration has continued to push to close the pact in the coming weeks, but TPP documents leaked on Dec. 8 allegedly depict deep remaining divisions (see 13120924). “We will continue to work with flexibility to finalize these text issues as well as market access issues,” said the statement. The leaked documents, released by WikiLeaks, claim to show the U.S. is applying “great pressure” to convince other nations to agree to its positions, according to WikiLeaks. The documents also describe specific outstanding issues, also known as brackets. The U.S. stance on pharmaceutical patent extensions and data exclusivity are particularly contentious, said Public Citizen Global Trade Watch Director Lori Wallach on Dec. 9 (see 13120927). Nonetheless, a final TPP agreement will generate an additional $123.5 billion in U.S. exports by 2025, said USTR in a separate release (here). USTR did not respond for comment.
The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) will build on existing U.S. trade relations with TPP participant nations that received 45 percent of U.S. goods exports in 2012, said the Business Roundtable in a Dec. 10 statement that praised U.S. Trade Representative efforts to close the deal. U.S. lawmakers must also expeditiously pass Trade Promotion Authority in order to enable the U.S. to continue to pursue pending trade pacts, said the Business Roundtable. “Trade Promotion Authority is an essential partnership between Congress and the Administration to complete trade agreements such as the TPP, TTIP and TISA that benefit the U.S. economy and support American jobs,” said John Engler, President of the Business Roundtable. “We urge Congress and the Administration to work together to act on updated Trade Promotion Authority legislation as soon as possible.”
WikiLeaks released more documents that it says come from the ongoing negotiations for the Trans-Pacific Partnership, marking the second time the group has released documents related to the negotiations (see 13111323). The "secret TPP documents" show "the state of negotiations as the twelve TPP countries began supposedly final negotiations at a trade ministers’ meeting in Singapore this week," it said. According to WikiLeaks, one of the documents describes work by the U.S. to get other countries to adopt U.S. stances, while the other document lists, "country-by-country, the many areas of disagreement remaining." The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative did not immediately return a request for comment on the authenticity of the released documents.
The office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) is requesting comments on the "operation, effectiveness, implementation of and compliance with" U.S. telecommunications product and services provisions in U.S. international trade agreements. USTR seeks input by Jan. 3, 2014 on the following specific areas:
The U.S. Trade Representative is setting the eligibility for preferential tariff rates for sugar, syrup, and sugar products from Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Morocco, Nicaragua, Peru, and Panama. Under free trade agreements with those countries, sugar and sugar products from a given country aren't eligible for duty-free treatment or preferential tariff rates if that country's imports of sugar and sugar products exceed its exports -- a "negative surplus." USTR made the following determinations for calendar year 2014:
The U.S. Trade Representative extended the Section 301 investigation of Ukraine for three months, pledging to make a determination by Feb. 28, 2014, on Ukrainian intellectual property rights (IPR) violations. Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974 permits the U.S. to retaliate against unfair trade practices (here). USTR launched the investigation in May, labeling Ukraine a priority foreign country. “This designation is the culmination of several years of growing concern over widespread IP theft, including the growing entrenchment of IPR infringement that is facilitated by government actors,” the USTR report said at the time (here). Further information: Elizabeth Kendall, 202-395-3580, Isabella Detwiler, 202-395-6146, or Shannon Nestor, 202-395-3150.
South Korea intends to hold preliminary talks with Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) countries aimed at joining the negotiations, said the U.S. Trade Representative said in a Nov. 29 statement. The U.S. continues to target the end of 2013 for conclusion of TPP negotiations among the current 12 participant nations (see 13112924).
The Chinese Vice Premier Wang Yang spoke with Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker and U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman via telephone on Nov. 26, the official Chinese government press news agency, Xinhua, said in a release. The officials discussed preparations for the upcoming 24th Session of China-U.S. Joint Commission on Commerce and Trade (JCCT). The office of the USTR declined to comment.