Alliance for Trade Enforcement Complains About Mexican, Canadian Practices Across Many Sectors
The Alliance for Trade Enforcement is asking U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer to bring up intellectual property and agriculture issues with Mexico and Canada in the USMCA. The alliance includes trade groups in pharmaceutical, biotech and creative industries and the National Association of Manufacturers, in addition to broad trade groups such as the National Foreign Trade Council and the U.S. Council for International Business.
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In the letter, released publicly July 9, the alliance thanked Lighthizer for his intervention with Mexico on its refusal to approve agricultural biotech products. He has said publicly that he thinks it will end up as the subject of a state-to-state dispute.
The alliance, as dairy trade groups and House members have, complained about Canada's new dairy tariff rate quota distribution regime. “Canada’s efforts to manipulate its agreed-upon trade obligations to protect its tightly controlled dairy market are unacceptable,” the letter said.
The group also asked the USTR to ask Mexico to increase criminal penalties for uploading “camcorded movies” online. It said that Mexico is a major source of pirated movies online.
And, they said, “Canada’s Patented Medicine Prices Review Board continues to develop and implement unfair pricing and reimbursement regulatory schemes that do not fully account for the cost of research and development of innovative treatments.” The group said Canada's “failure to pay its fair share” will reduce incentives for American manufacturers to develop new medicines.