U.S. Chamber of Commerce Senior Vice President Patrick Kilbride said existing intellectual property rights “formed the legal and economic basis for an unprecedented level of highly successful collaborations between government, industry, academia” and non-governmental organizations, He said the Chamber supports the COVAX global initiative and removing regulatory barriers to boost distribution of COVID-19 vaccines but not a waiver of IP rights. Proposals to waive IP rights “are misguided and a distraction from the real work of reinforcing supply chains and assisting countries to procure, distribute and administer vaccines to billions of the world’s citizens. Diminishing intellectual property rights would make it more difficult to quickly develop and distribute vaccines or treatments in the future pandemics the world will face,” Kilbride said in a statement issued March 2.
Mara Lee
Mara Lee, Senior Editor, is a reporter for International Trade Today and its sister publications Export Compliance Daily and Trade Law Daily. She joined the Warren Communications News staff in early 2018, after covering health policy, Midwestern Congressional delegations, and the Connecticut economy, insurance and manufacturing sectors for the Hartford Courant, the nation’s oldest continuously published newspaper (established 1674). Before arriving in Washington D.C. to cover Congress in 2005, she worked in Ohio, where she witnessed fervent presidential campaigning every four years.
In written questions to U.S. trade representative nominee Katherine Tai, she was pressed to argue for U.S. agricultural export interests around the world, and asked how China could be moved to meet more of its promises to buy American exports, agricultural and otherwise.
The House Ways and Means Trade Subcommittee chairman, along with two members of the former NAFTA working group, lent their voices to a letter asking the administration to drop its opposition to a TRIPS waiver at the World Trade Organization. The Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property waiver, requested by India and South Africa, would temporarily end patent protections for new vaccines and diagnostic tests used against COVID-19. Countries are already allowed to do compulsory licenses in the case of emergencies, but only after negotiations on compensating the company for the right to manufacture the drug failed.
U.S. trade representative nominee Katherine Tai said that despite the president's prioritizing of the domestic economy, “I don't expect, if confirmed, to be put on the back burner at all.” Tai, a veteran of the House Ways and Means Committee trade staff, faced largely friendly questioning over a more-than-three-hour hearing in the Senate Finance Committee on Feb. 25.
Thompson Hine trade attorney Dan Ujczo expects the only activity on trade in the first eight months of Joe Biden's presidency will be on issues either so small that they don't make a splash -- such as the Miscellaneous Tariff Bill and the Generalized System of Preferences benefits program -- or on issues that have an immediate need for action.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has warmly endorsed Katherine Tai to be U.S. trade representative. In a letter sent Feb. 23, Executive Vice President Myron Brilliant said her experience at the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative and as chief trade counsel for the House Ways and Means Committee, is invaluable. “She combines policy acumen, negotiating experience, and political savvy,” he wrote. “While one important aspect of USTR’s mission is to address unfair trading practices, the previous Administration’s dramatic expansion in the application of tariffs contributed directly to a manufacturing and agriculture recession well in advance of the [COVID-19] pandemic, and this experience illustrates the perils of an excessive reliance on tariffs. The next USTR must avoid the use of tariffs as a blunt instrument, and must avoid inaction on trade agreements as well,” he said, adding that Tai understands that.
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden, D-Ore., said the U.S. trade representative nominee has “really extraordinary skill in bringing people together,” and that it's critical to confirm her, deputy Treasury secretary nominee Wally Adeyemo, and the Health and Human Services secretary, so they can get to work. Wyden, who spoke with reporters Feb. 22, didn't spend much time on trade issues, but he said he thinks Katherine Tai is “going to do a first-rate job” heading the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative.
Rep. Mark Green, R-Tenn., reintroduced a bill Feb. 18 that would control the export of certain technology and intellectual property to China. The legislation was previously introduced in 2019, and it is among a slate of bills “to confront the Chinese Communist Party’s malign influence” reintroduced by Green.
The Senate Finance Committee scheduled a hearing to consider Katherine Tai to be the next U.S. trade representative. They will interview her Feb. 25 at 10 a.m.
Sen. Tom Cotton, one of the most prominent China hawks in Congress, thinks that the Bureau of Industry and Security is buried within an organization “hostile to the aggressive use of export controls,” and so it should be moved from the Commerce Department to the State Department, because, he says, that department puts national security first. Cotton, who has published a lengthy report on what he calls the economic long war with China, discussed his views during an online program at the Reagan Presidential Foundation on Feb. 18.