The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR)...
The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) should be more transparent in its negotiations of the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP), said Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., in a Thursday letter to Deputy National Security Adviser for International Economic Affairs Michael…
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Froman, recently nominated to be USTR by President Barack Obama (http://1.usa.gov/13F5H7X). USTR should publicly provide negotiation text that includes language proposed by participating countries, she said. “I appreciate the willingness of the USTR to make various documents available for review by members of Congress, but I do not believe that is a substitute for more robust public transparency,” the letter said. An expectation of public outcry to the negotiation text is not a sufficient reason to keep the text from the public, Warren wrote: “If transparency would lead to widespread public opposition to a trade agreement, then that trade agreement should not be the policy of the United States.” Warren asked Froman whether, if confirmed to be USTR, he would publish the negotiation text or a version of the text that does not identify which country authored which language -- similar to text that the U.S. released during the 2001 Free Trade Area of the Americas process.