The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative is seeking comments on whether member countries of the Caribbean Basin Initiative (CBI) are meeting the criteria for their inclusion, as well as comments on CBI's operations itself, it said in a Federal Register notice.
The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative is proposing to revise its upcoming Section 301 actions on the maritime, logistics and shipbuilding sectors, including fees for vehicle carriers and restrictions on maritime transport services.
The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative has extended by three months certain current exclusions to its Section 301 investigation related to U.S. trade with China.
The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative is seeking comments on whether any act, policy or practice relating to drug prices appears "unreasonable or discriminatory," or appears to have "the effect of forcing American patients to pay for a disproportionate amount of global pharmaceutical research and development, including by suppressing the price of pharmaceutical products below fair market value in foreign countries," it said in a Federal Register notice,
The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative is soliciting comments on whether African countries eligible for the African Growth and Opportunity Act benefits should continue to be eligible for AGOA in 2026. (Congress has to renew AGOA before then, as the whole program expires at the end of September.)
The Coalition for a Prosperous America, a pro-Trump trade group, noted in its newsletter that U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer squeezed in an appearance at their annual conference between returning from talks with China in Switzerland and flying to Asia for more negotiations.
Both the Japanese government and Japanese reporters' coverage of Japan's more than two-hour talk with the U.S. trade representative, commerce secretary and treasury secretary describe politicians who are not in a hurry to settle to avoid 24% tariffs under the reciprocal tariff plan that is scheduled to take effect in early July.
In its annual report on how foreign countries honor intellectual property protections, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative added Mexico to its Priority Watch List of the worst offenders, while Argentina, China, India, Indonesia, Chile, Russia and Venezuela remain on the list from last year.
The U.S. Trade Representative has published its annual trade estimate, almost 400 pages of tariff and non-tariff barriers in countries around the world. The report noted, "The estimates included in this report constitute an attempt to quantitatively assess the potential effect of removing certain foreign trade barriers to particular U.S. exports. However, the estimates cannot be used to determine the total effect on U.S. exports, either to the country in which a barrier has been identified, or to the world in general. In other words, the estimates contained in this report cannot be aggregated in order to derive a total estimate of gain in U.S. exports to a given country or the world."
Jennifer Thornton, who recently led the Business Roundtable's advocacy on trade policy, has joined the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative as general counsel. Before going to the trade group that represents America's largest companies, she was trade counsel to Rep. Kevin Brady, R-Texas, and Rep. Adrian Smith, R-Neb., when they were in the minority on the House Ways and Means Committee.