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U.S. Code as of:
01/19/04
Section 2901. Overall and principal trade negotiating objectives of the United States
(a) Overall trade negotiating objectives
The overall trade negotiating objectives of the United States are
to obtain -
(1) more open, equitable, and reciprocal market access;
(2) the reduction or elimination of barriers and other
trade-distorting policies and practices; and
(3) a more effective system of international trading
disciplines and procedures.
(b) Principal trade negotiating objectives
(1) Dispute settlement
The principal negotiating objectives of the United States with
respect to dispute settlement are -
(A) to provide for more effective and expeditious dispute
settlement mechanisms and procedures; and
(B) to ensure that such mechanisms within the GATT and GATT
agreements provide for more effective and expeditious
resolution of disputes and enable better enforcement of United
States rights.
(2) Improvement of the GATT and multilateral trade negotiation
agreements
The principal negotiating objectives of the United States
regarding the improvement of GATT and multilateral trade
negotiation agreements are -
(A) to enhance the status of the GATT;
(B) to improve the operation and extend the coverage of the
GATT and such agreements and arrangements to products, sectors,
and conditions of trade not adequately covered; and
(C) to expand country participation in particular agreements
or arrangements, where appropriate.
(3) Transparency
The principal negotiating objective of the United States
regarding transparency is to obtain broader application of the
principle of transparency and clarification of the costs and
benefits of trade policy actions through the observance of open
and equitable procedures in trade matters by Contracting Parties
to the GATT.
(4) Developing countries
The principal negotiating objectives of the United States
regarding developing countries are -
(A) to ensure that developing countries promote economic
development by assuming the fullest possible measure of
responsibility for achieving and maintaining an open
international trading system by providing reciprocal benefits
and assuming equivalent obligations with respect to their
import and export practices; and
(B) to establish procedures for reducing nonreciprocal trade
benefits for the more advanced developing countries.
(5) Current account surpluses
The principal negotiating objective of the United States
regarding current account surpluses is to develop rules to
address large and persistent global current account imbalances of
countries, including imbalances which threaten the stability of
the international trading system, by imposing greater
responsibility on such countries to undertake policy changes
aimed at restoring current account equilibrium, including
expedited implementation of trade agreements where feasible and
appropriate.
(6) Trade and monetary coordination
The principal negotiating objective of the United States
regarding trade and monetary coordination is to develop
mechanisms to assure greater coordination, consistency, and
cooperation between international trade and monetary systems and
institutions.
(7) Agriculture
The principal negotiating objectives of the United States with
respect to agriculture are to achieve, on an expedited basis to
the maximum extent feasible, more open and fair conditions of
trade in agricultural commodities by -
(A) developing, strengthening, and clarifying rules for
agricultural trade, including disciplines on restrictive or
trade-distorting import and export practices;
(B) increasing United States agricultural exports by
eliminating barriers to trade (including transparent and
nontransparent barriers) and reducing or eliminating the
subsidization of agricultural production consistent with the
United States policy of agricultural stabilization in cyclical
and unpredictable markets;
(C) creating a free and more open world agricultural trading
system by resolving questions pertaining to export and other
trade-distorting subsidies, market pricing and market access
and eliminating and reducing substantially other specific
constraints to fair trade and more open market access, such as
tariffs, quotas, and other nontariff practices, including
unjustified phytosanitary and sanitary restrictions; and
(D) seeking agreements by which the major agricultural
exporting nations agree to pursue policies to reduce excessive
production of agricultural commodities during periods of
oversupply, with due regard for the fact that the United States
already undertakes such policies, and without recourse to
arbitrary schemes to divide market shares among major exporting
countries.
(8) Unfair trade practices
The principal negotiating objectives of the United States with
respect to unfair trade practices are -
(A) to improve the provisions of the GATT and nontariff
measure agreements in order to define, deter, discourage the
persistent use of, and otherwise discipline unfair trade
practices having adverse trade effects, including forms of
subsidy and dumping and other practices not adequately covered
such as resource input subsidies, diversionary dumping, dumped
or subsidized inputs, and export targeting practices;
(B) to obtain the application of similar rules to the
treatment of primary and nonprimary products in the Agreement
on Interpretation and Application of Articles VI, XVI, and
XXIII of the GATT (relating to subsidies and countervailing
measures); and
(C) to obtain the enforcement of GATT rules against -
(i) state trading enterprises, and
(ii) the acts, practices, or policies of any foreign
government which, as a practical matter, unreasonably require
that -
(I) substantial direct investment in the foreign country
be made,
(II) intellectual property be licensed to the foreign
country or to any firm of the foreign country, or
(III) other collateral concessions be made,
as a condition for the importation of any product or service
of the United States into the foreign country or as a
condition for carrying on business in the foreign country.
(9) Trade in services
(A) The principal negotiating objectives of the United States
regarding trade in services are -
(i) to reduce or to eliminate barriers to, or other
distortions of, international trade in services, including
barriers that deny national treatment and restrictions on
establishment and operation in such markets; and
(ii) to develop internationally agreed rules, including
dispute settlement procedures, which -
(I) are consistent with the commercial policies of the
United States, and
(II) will reduce or eliminate such barriers or distortions,
and help ensure fair, equitable opportunities for foreign
markets.
(B) In pursuing the negotiating objectives described in
subparagraph (A), United States negotiators shall take into
account legitimate United States domestic objectives including,
but not limited to, the protection of legitimate health or
safety, essential security, environmental, consumer or employment
opportunity interests and the law and regulations related
thereto.
(10) Intellectual property
The principal negotiating objectives of the United States
regarding intellectual property are -
(A) to seek the enactment and effective enforcement by
foreign countries of laws which -
(i) recognize and adequately protect intellectual property,
including copyrights, patents, trademarks, semiconductor chip
layout designs, and trade secrets, and
(ii) provide protection against unfair competition,
(B) to establish in the GATT obligations -
(i) to implement adequate substantive standards based on -
(I) the standards in existing international agreements
that provide adequate protection, and
(II) the standards in national laws if international
agreement standards are inadequate or do not exist,
(ii) to establish effective procedures to enforce, both
internally and at the border, the standards implemented under
clause (i), and
(iii) to implement effective dispute settlement procedures
that improve on existing GATT procedures;
(C) to recognize that the inclusion in the GATT of -
(i) adequate and effective substantive norms and standards
for the protection and enforcement of intellectual property
rights, and
(ii) dispute settlement provisions and enforcement
procedures,
is without prejudice to other complementary initiatives
undertaken in other international organizations; and
(D) to supplement and strengthen standards for protection and
enforcement in existing international intellectual property
conventions administered by other international organizations,
including their expansion to cover new and emerging
technologies and elimination of discrimination or unreasonable
exceptions or preconditions to protection.
(11) Foreign direct investment
(A) The principal negotiating objectives of the United States
regarding foreign direct investment are -
(i) to reduce or to eliminate artificial or trade-distorting
barriers to foreign direct investment, to expand the principle
of national treatment, and to reduce unreasonable barriers to
establishment; and
(ii) to develop internationally agreed rules, including
dispute settlement procedures, which -
(I) will help ensure a free flow of foreign direct
investment, and
(II) will reduce or eliminate the trade distortive effects
of certain trade-related investment measures.
(B) In pursuing the negotiating objectives described in
subparagraph (A), United States negotiators shall take into
account legitimate United States domestic objectives including,
but not limited to, the protection of legitimate health or
safety, essential security, environmental, consumer or employment
opportunity interests and the law and regulations related
thereto.
(12) Safeguards
The principal negotiating objectives of the United States
regarding safeguards are -
(A) to improve and expand rules and procedures covering
safeguard measures;
(B) to ensure that safeguard measures are -
(i) transparent,
(ii) temporary,
(iii) degressive, and
(iv) subject to review and termination when no longer
necessary to remedy injury and to facilitate adjustment; and
(C) to require notification of, and to monitor the use by,
GATT Contracting Parties of import relief actions for their
domestic industries.
(13) Specific barriers
The principal negotiating objective of the United States
regarding specific barriers is to obtain competitive
opportunities for United States exports in foreign markets
substantially equivalent to the competitive opportunities
afforded foreign exports to United States markets, including the
reduction or elimination of specific tariff and nontariff trade
barriers, particularly -
(A) measures identified in the annual report prepared under
section 2241 of this title; and
(B) foreign tariffs and nontariff barriers on competitive
United States exports when like or similar products enter the
United States at low rates of duty or are duty-free, and other
tariff disparities that impede access to particular export
markets.
(14) Worker rights
The principal negotiating objectives of the United States
regarding worker rights are -
(A) to promote respect for worker rights;
(B) to secure a review of the relationship of worker rights
to GATT articles, objectives, and related instruments with a
view to ensuring that the benefits of the trading system are
available to all workers; and
(C) to adopt, as a principle of the GATT, that the denial of
worker rights should not be a means for a country or its
industries to gain competitive advantage in international
trade.
(15) Access to high technology
(A) The principal negotiating objective of the United States
regarding access to high technology is to obtain the elimination
or reduction of foreign barriers to, and acts, policies, or
practices by foreign governments which limit, equitable access by
United States persons to foreign-developed technology, including
barriers, acts, policies, or practices which have the effect of -
(i) restricting the participation of United States persons in
government-supported research and development projects;
(ii) denying equitable access by United States persons to
government-held patents;
(iii) requiring the approval or agreement of government
entities, or imposing other forms of government interventions,
as a condition for the granting of licenses to United States
persons by foreign persons (except for approval or agreement
which may be necessary for national security purposes to
control the export of critical military technology); and
(iv) otherwise denying equitable access by United States
persons to foreign-developed technology or contributing to the
inequitable flow of technology between the United States and
its trading partners.
(B) In pursuing the negotiating objective described in
subparagraph (A), the United States negotiators shall take into
account United States Government policies in licensing or
otherwise making available to foreign persons technology and
other information developed by United States laboratories.
(16) Border taxes
The principal negotiating objective of the United States
regarding border taxes is to obtain a revision of the GATT with
respect to the treatment of border adjustments for internal taxes
to redress the disadvantage to countries relying primarily for
revenue on direct taxes rather than indirect taxes.
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