Jacob Kopnick

Senior Obama Administration officials pushed the anticipated national security benefits they expect the Trans-Pacific Partnership will provide during a call with reporters on March 29. During the call, retired Lt. Gen. Dan Christman, who now serves as Potomac Research Group’s senior national security analyst and previously served as an assistant for the Joint Chiefs of Staff for the Administration, said that TPP is crucial in barring China from encroaching on U.S. interests and engagement in the Asia-Pacific region. If TPP is not ratified, “it’d be kicking the teeth for our friends and allies who have extended themselves to sign up to the high-standard goals that TPP represents,” Christman said. Failure to seal the U.S. commitment to ratification could also pose strategic and diplomatic setbacks, as fellow TPP members are expecting the U.S. to follow through, he said.

The U.S. and Peru agreed to remove trade barriers for U.S. beef exports to the country that have been in place for the last 13 years, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman announced (here). While U.S. beef and beef product exports to Peru have spiked since the U.S.-Peru Trade Promotion Agreement (PTPA) entered into force in 2009, they have at the same time been “hampered” after Peru installed “burdensome certification requirements” in 2003, USTR said. Vilsack and his team secured the agreement, termed the “export verification program,” on his trade and investment mission to the country. Through a bilateral exchange of letters, the U.S. and Peru agreed to changes in certification statements that will allow beef and beef products from all federally inspected U.S. establishments to be eligible for export to Peru. Under the previous requirements, eligibility applied to beef and beef products only from facilities that participated in the Agriculture Department’s Agricultural Marketing Service Export Verification programs.

The U.S. and EU made "significant advances in the regulatory area" last week during the latest round of negotiations on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Treaty in Brussels, as both parties hope to reach "an advanced stage of text consolidation across the board" by July, narrowing negotiations to the most sensitive issues in hopes of concluding negotiations by the end of 2016, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative said in a statement released Feb. 29 (here). The U.S. and EU progressed in hashing out common objectives they want to achieve in the automobile, pharmaceutical, and medical device sections of the deal, and the U.S. put forth "substantive proposals" on customs and trade facilitation, sanitary and phytosanitary measures, and rules of origin, USTR said. The office reiterated that it seeks an elimination on all tariffs between the U.S. and EU, despite the two parties agreeing to an elimination of only 97 percent of tariffs during the last TTIP negotiating round in October. "We want to finish this year, but we do not favor an 'early harvest' or a 'T-TIP light,'" USTR said. "We want an ambitious, comprehensive and high standard agreement."

The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative asked Peru to verify that a 2015 timber shipment from that country to the U.S. complied with Peruvian laws and regulations, USTR said (here). “Today’s announcement is an important step forward in our shared commitment to combat illegal logging, which threatens our environment and the legitimate businesses that are abiding by the rules,” U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman said in a statement. “We look forward to working closely with Peru as it conducts this verification.” The move drew praise from Congressional Democrats, including Senate Finance Ranking Member Ron Wyden, Ore., and House Ways and Means Ranking Member Sandy Levin, Mich.

President Barack Obama intends to sign the comprehensive customs reauthorization legislation passed by the Senate on Feb. 11 (see 1602110018), White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said in a statement (here). Despite some concerns with the legislation's mention of Israel, the bill's "passage is an important milestone in our overall trade agenda," Earnest said of the Trade Facilitation and Trade Enforcement Act of 2015. Among other things, the legislation (here) increases the de minimis level, directs the Secretary of Homeland Security to draft new importer of record regulations, fixes tariffs for recreational performance outerwear, and updates reliquidation procedures.

New Zealand plans to host all 11 other members of the Trans-Pacific Partnership for the signing of the agreement on Feb. 4 in Auckland, New Zealand Trade Minister Todd McClay confirmed in a Jan. 21 statement (here). After signature, the nations will have up to two years to ratify the pact. A spokeswoman for Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, offered a cautious response. “It’s the administration’s decision to move forward with a signing ceremony, however a lot of outstanding issues remain,” she said in an email. “Chairman Hatch will continue with his oversight efforts to ensure the TPP trade agreement meets the high standards set by Congress and, if approved, will be fully and faithfully implemented by our trading partners.” Hatch has criticized the agreement’s data protections for biologics as weak (see 1511060028).

As the Trans Pacific Partnership appears to be nearing signature, Hill democrats scrutinized the agreement's auto provisions and how it will affect the U.S. auto industry during a Jan. 11 forum on Capitol Hill. Lawmakers and their panelist guests highlighted that the agreement's rules of origin would require 45 percent regional value content, in contrast with NAFTA, which has a 62.5 percent threshold.

U.S. and South African veterinarians resolved issues over salmonella levels allowed in U.S. poultry exports to the country during a Jan. 6 meeting. The resolution reduces the potential for the end to certain duty-free benefits provided to South African agricultural goods by the U.S. under the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA). “The risks of being kicked out of AGOA have been resolved,” Sandile Tyini, economic minister in the South African Embassy’s Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) Foreign Economic Office said in an interview on Jan. 7. “The negotiations took place yesterday and then all the remaining issues as proclaimed by the US as issues were resolved mutually between the two sides, and…we verified that we met all the conditions to remain in AGOA.” But no one from the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative or the White House has yet officially confirmed to Pretoria that it will remain in good AGOA standing, the official said.

The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative is apparently holding off on terminating duty-free benefits provided to South African agricultural goods under the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), after a months-long meat trade dispute dragged past President Barack Obama’s Dec. 31 deadline for resolution. South Africa Trade and Industry Minister Rob Davies said during a Jan. 5 press conference (here) that negotiations between the U.S. and South Africa are still ongoing. U.S. and South African veterinarians are scheduled to meet Jan. 6 over salmonella tolerance for American poultry exports to the country and Davies said he is optimistic the two sides could reach an agreement by Jan. 8.

The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative’s mention of Chinese e-commerce company Alibaba in its 2015 Notorious Markets Report sent a strong warning to the company to stop and prevent the peddling of counterfeit goods on its websites (see 1512170016), the American Apparel & Footwear Association said on Dec. 17 (here). “The U.S. government sent a strong warning to Alibaba today ─ what it said was, clean up your sites, show us the results, and do it soon,” AAFA CEO Juanita Duggan said in a statement. “USTR told Alibaba to make serious reforms and get rid of the rampant counterfeit problem on its sites ─ AAFA agrees.” AAFA said USTR shares its concerns about Alibaba’s enforcement system, highlighting that the agency said in its report that the mechanism is “too slow, difficult to use, and lacks transparency.”