Jacob Kopnick

A World Trade Organization (WTO) settlement panel found Chinese export restraints on two rare earth metals, tungsten and molybdenum, violate WTO agreements, U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) Michael Froman announced on March 26. The panel ruled in favor of the U.S. in the dispute, the Office of the USTR said in a press release. The WTO website has not yet published the ruling. U.S. companies import the rare earth metals to use as inputs for hybrid car batteries, wind turbines, energy-efficient lighting, steel, advanced electronics, automobiles, petroleum and chemicals, USTR said.

The U.S. would likely have sealed a final Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) pact by now if Japan and Canada were willing to make sufficient concessions on agriculture market access, said U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) Michael Froman at the Atlantic Annual Economy Summit on March 18. Japan continues to refuse tariff elimination on rice, meat, wheat, dairy and sugar, while Canada is reluctant to concede dairy and poultry, according to USTR and independent observers (see 14022504). Japanese intransigence has emerged as a contentious issue in recent weeks (see 14021902).

The U.S.-South Korea free trade agreement (FTA) is boosting U.S. agriculture exports, such as dairy, wine, beer, soybean oil, fruits and nuts, while improving South Korean intellectual property rights protections, said the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) in a statement released days shy of the two year anniversary of the trade pact. Despite slow poor economic growth in South Korea, the U.S. is also exporting an increasing number of manufacturing products to South Korea, such as autos, said USTR.

U.S. negotiators continue to prioritize the elimination of tariffs on textiles and apparel and wide-ranging agricultural products in the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) as the U.S. delegation convenes with European Union (EU) counterparts for the fourth round of TTIP negotiations currently underway in Brussels, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative said in a March 11 release. But the summit will largely focus on rules of origin, intellectual property, labor, regulatory sectors and services, said USTR in a previous statement (here).

President Barack Obama urged World Trade Organization (WTO) Director-General Roberto Azevedo to ensure the WTO remains a forum to address enforcement of trade rights and the dismantling of unfair tariff and non-tariff barriers during a bilateral meeting in Washington D.C. on March 10, according to a senior administration official. U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman later in the day pressed Azevedo to implement by 2015 the WTO trade facilitation deal brokered in Bali in December, according to a USTR spokesman.

U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) Michael Froman is scheduled to meet with World Trade Organization (WTO) Director-General Roberto Azevedo, and later Vietnamese Finance Minister Dinh Tien Dung, in closed sessions on March 10, the Office of the USTR said in a weekly schedule release. US Ambassador to the WTO Michael Punke will meet with European Commission Director General for Trade Jean-Luc Demarty in a closed session in Brussels on March 10, as well. Acting Deputy USTR Wendy Cutler will also participate in two days of confidential meetings with Japanese Ambassador to the U.S. Hiroshi Oe regarding TPP market access issues, along with other USTR events planned for this week.

The Obama administration continues to negotiate Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agricultural access for Japanese and Canadian markets, but administration trade officials have made “great progress” in eliminating Vietnamese and Malaysia agricultural tariffs that range from 20-50 percent, said U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) Michael Froman and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack in a joint radio broadcast disseminated to rural stations throughout the country on March 7. The TPP agreement can help build on Fiscal Year 2013 record exports for U.S. agriculture (here), said Vilsack, according to a USTR release.

The Guatemalan government is strengthening labor domestic protection through increasing workplace inspectors and passing legislation that ensure police assistance for inspector access and verify employer compliance with labor law, but the reforms remain insufficient, said the Office of the Trade Representative in a March 6 release. The U.S. suspended a labor dispute with Guatemala, initiated through the Dominican Republic-Central America-United States Free Trade Agreement dispute mechanism, after the two countries signed a deal in April 2013 that mandated specific Guatemalan labor protection enforcement. The U.S. may choose to renew the dispute proceeding if U.S. concerns are not sufficiently addressed by April 25, said USTR.

The Obama Administration is prioritizing increases in agriculture and manufacturing exports during the course of 2014, said the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) in the Trade Policy Agenda released on March 4. The USTR will also seek to add protections to intellectual property rights through the World Trade Organization and free trade agreements now being negotiated, the agency said.

The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations continue to be hampered by gaps between negotiators on a broad set of issues, said a number of industry officials and analysts, despite repeated Obama administration claims that the talks are close to conclusion. The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative has recently ratcheted up pressure on Japan to deliver more substantial auto and agriculture tariff and non-tariff barrier elimination, indicating the fate of the pact may partially hinge on U.S.-Japanese bilateral agreement (see 14021902). But as the Singapore ministerial round of TPP negotiations concluded on Feb. 25, some say there are unresolved traditional and non-traditional areas of trade that pose obstacles to the heavily-anticipated conclusion of negotiations.