President's 2013 Trade Agenda Highlights TPP, EU-U.S.; TPA Language Not Enough for Congress
Advancing Trans-Pacific Partnership talks, an EU-U.S. trade agreement and trade liberalization through the WTO are the highlights of President Barack Obama’s 2013 Agenda on Trade Policy, released March 1. The 382-page document mentions Trade Promotion Authority just once: “To facilitate the conclusion, approval, and implementation of market-opening negotiating efforts, we will also work with Congress on Trade Promotion Authority. Such authority will guide current and future negotiations, and will thus support a jobs-focused trade agenda moving forward.” Some congressional leaders have criticized President Obama for not stressing TPA enough. “Making TPA a reality requires more than talk, it demands real leadership and action from the President,” said Senate Finance Committee Ranking Member Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, in a statement (here).
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Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., said in a statement TPA is necessary before, during and after trade negotiations: It helps set objectives, define the terms for Congressional consultations and establishes rules for considering the implementing bills. “I urge the President to demonstrate his commitment to a vigorous and productive trade policy by nominating a qualified and committed U.S. Trade Representative and by immediately beginning discussions with Congress on renewing Trade Promotion Authority.” Read that statement here.
On TPP, the document -- required by statute to be delivered to Congress annually on March 1 -- says the U.S. will strive to finish negotiations this year, and welcomes Japan’s interest in joining the talks. The EU-U.S. agreement is called a chance to generate new business and employment and “pioneer rules and disciplines that address challenges to global trade and investment.” In both of those negotiations, the U.S. will seek remedies for trade distortions, localized barriers to trade and “unfair competition associated with the increasing engagement of large, State-owned enterprises in international trade,” the agenda said.
In a Sunday op-ed in the Financial Times, Senate Finance Committee Max Baucus, D-Mont., said the EU-U.S. agreement "must be comprehensive and address the full range of barriers to US goods and services if it is to receive broad, bipartisan congressional support." Baucus said that includes eliminating barrier that block the import of "genetically modified crops and beef and pork containing feed additives that have been deemed to be safe."
Within the WTO, the agenda said the U.S. will work on a multilateral trade facilitation agreement, expansion of the Information Technology Agreement and an international services trade agreement. Key parts of those negotiations will be increasing transparency from trading partners on restrictive regulatory policies, supporting service trade through electronic channels and enabling service suppliers “to compete on the basis of quality and competence rather than nationality,” the agenda said.
Other priorities in the agenda include engaging with specific countries, like Korea, Colombia and Panama, to realize the full benefits of trade agreements finalized in 2012, including “commitments related to agricultural market access and to apply science-based sanitary and phytosanitary standards to U.S. agricultural exports.” Enforcement is also a key part of the 2013 agenda, including increased use of the Interagency Trade Enforcement Center and pursuing cases through WTO dispute panels, such as “China’s unfair export restraints on rare earths, tungsten, and molybdenum, and by seeking to ensure China’s full and timely compliance with the WTO’s decision in the raw materials case,” the agenda said.