Those who oppose intellectual property rules in free trade agreements mostly base their rejection on a fundamental opposition to IP rights protections, rather than to the particulars of trade deals, said Tom Giovanetti, president of the Institute for Policy Innovation in a recent essay. Exports from within the intellectual property industries, primarily copyright and pharmaceutical but also many other sectors, actually make up the largest slice of U.S. shipments abroad, and IP rules in FTAs are critical in keeping U.S. dominance in those sectors, said Giovanetti.

The Obama administration should revise its plans to relocate and consolidate the Department of Homeland Security headquarters, and Congress may want to consider making future funding for the project contingent on DHS and General Services Administration progress, the General Accountability Office said in a recent report. Completion of the $4.5 billion construction project at the St. Elizabeths Campus in Washington, D.C. is now estimated at 2026. The location is slated to eventually house senior DHS officials and CBP headquarters.

The coming months represent the "last chance" to close Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations because the U.S. presidential election in 2016 is likely to prevent any real progress, said Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong in recent days. The U.S. will be “giving the game away” to China if the Obama administration doesn’t pressure the end of negotiations, he said at the Singapore Summit on Sept. 20, while adding that China right now is the largest trader with Singapore, Japan, South Korea and many other Pacific countries. A TPP deal is critical to the U.S. presence in the region, said Hsien Loong, arguing that a military pivot to Asian isn’t enough. The inability for the U.S. to close a deal “does not make sense, but congressmen have different calculations and you have to make this sense percolate through and register with them,” said Hsien Loong. “And maybe after the mid-term elections, you’ll have a window to do that because after you negotiate the agreement, it has to be ratified and in America that cannot be taken for granted.” Trade ministers from Australia and New Zealand have recently said that talks will not be wrapped up in 2014, despite President Barack Obama’s November target (see 14091028).

A recently released, Department of Labor-funded study railed against worker rights and labor conditions in the Malaysian electronics sector. Migrant workers in the country are exploited through high recruitment fees and a complex recruitment process, insufficient legal protections and deception about “eventual working conditions,” said the study, conducted by Verité, a labor consultant firm. “The conditions faced by foreign electronics workers in Malaysia have the potential to result in forced labor,” it said. The study was based on the International Labor Organization’s survey guidelines, and Verité chose to define forced labor “narrowly,” it said. “Forced labor was found in the study sample in significant numbers across all major producing regions, electronics products, foreign worker nationalities, and among both female and male workers,” said the study. “These results suggest that forced labor is present in the Malaysian electronics industry in more than isolated incidents, and can indeed be characterized as widespread.” Among other concerning findings, Verité said more than 90 percent of foreign workers have their passports held by their broker or agent, and more than two-thirds of the sample said it was impossible or difficult to get their passports back.

Developed countries have a far more skeptical and sometimes negative view of trade benefits than developing nations, and the U.S. public is one of the most critical of free trade, a Pew Research Center poll said. The study was released on Sept. 16, and the Peterson Institute for International Economics held an event the following day to analyze the findings. Only 20 percent of Americans think trade creates jobs, as opposed to the two-thirds of people in developing countries that think so. Seventeen percent of Americans said trade raises wages, and only 35 percent of Americans think trade lowers prices on goods. “Frankly I don’t find this that surprising,” said Bruce Stokes, Pew's director of global economic attitudes, at the Peterson Institute event. “If you look at wage growth in United States over the last generation or more, it’s been stagnating or declining. So why in the world would a large portion of Americans say ‘oh trade leads to higher wages’ when in fact they know the economy is more open than it was before.” Susan Schwab, strategic adviser at Mayer Brown and former U.S. Trade Representative, hit back at the findings, saying people typically emphasize negative trade impacts over the positives.

A World Trade Organization sponsored agreement on market access opening for environmental goods is supported by members of both parties in Congress, and the pact will help the U.S. and globe in conservation efforts, said lawmakers, business leaders and the Obama administration point man on trade policy at a Sept. 17 event. Negotiations on the agreement kicked off in July (see 14070811). They include the U.S., Australia, Canada, China, Costa Rica, Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, New Zealand, Norway, Singapore, Switzerland, European Union and Taiwan.

Japanese domestic resistance to Trans-Pacific Partnership concessions does not create a political threat to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, despite recent speculation to the contrary, and it is unclear why U.S.-Japanese market access negotiations have progressed at such a slow pace, said trade policy analysts at a Sept. 5 U.S.-Japan Research Institute panel. U.S. officials admit that the Japanese agricultural sector’s refusal to allow liberalization poses a challenge for Abe (see 14050804). Following months of failed attempts to broker compromise in TPP agricultural market access, Acting Deputy USTR Wendy Cutler and Chief Agriculture Negotiator Darci Vetter will head to Tokyo from Sept. 9-10 to resume bilateral negotiations (see 14090524).

The Drug Enforcement Agency is setting 2015 quotas for the manufacture and importation of controlled substances Schedule I and II of the Controlled Substances Act. Substances not listed in the table included in DEA's notice will have a quota of zero. DEA is also setting quotas for the Schedule I chemicals ephedrine, phenylpropanolamine, and pseudoephedrine.

The Federal Trade Commission is correcting a final rule it issued in August on EnergyGuide labels for central air conditioners, heat pumps, and weatherized furnaces. The corrections address sample labels and tables for energy use by central air conditioners. The changes take effect on Jan. 1, 2015, according to the original final rule (see 14081120).

The U.S. goods and services deficit decreased to $40.5 billion in July from $40.8 billion in June, the Census Bureau said. The goods deficit dropped $0.2 billion in July. Goods exports increased $1.8 billion to $138.6 billion, and goods imports increased $1.5 billion to $198.8 billion, said Census. The U.S. registered export increases in automotive vehicles, parts, and engines ($1.7 billion); industrial supplies and materials ($1.3 billion); and capital goods ($0.4 billion). The June to July spike in imports of goods reflected increases in automotive vehicles, parts, and engines ($1.4 billion); industrial supplies and materials ($0.5 billion); and foods, feeds, and beverages ($0.1 billion).