The fourth round of Trade in Services Agreement negotiations concluded in Geneva on Nov. 8, the office of the U.S. Trade Representative said (here). “The draft text of the agreement was further stabilized with the removal of all brackets concerning the ‘negative list’ approach,” said USTR. TISA includes 50 participants representing 70 percent of global trade in services, according to the Coalition of Services Industries (here).

U.S. and European Union trade officials convened in Brussels on Nov. 11 to launch five days of Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership negotiations, the office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) said Nov. 11. Negotiations will initially focus on investment rules and trade in services, USTR said, while officials also plan to broach regulatory coherence, technical barriers to trade, sectoral approaches and sanitary and phytosanitary measures, among other topics. The next round of negotiations is scheduled to be held Dec. 16-20 in Washington, D.C. (see 13110409). Industry leaders pressed comprehensive tariff elimination in a final TTIP pact, along with possible increases to de minimis levels, during an Oct. 30 Senate Finance Committee hearing (see 13103107).

The U.S. and European Union will conduct the second round of Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) talks from Nov. 11-15 in Brussels, the office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) said on Nov. 4 in a press release. Negotiations will cover services, investment, energy and raw materials, and regulatory issues, the USTR said. The following round of negotiations will be held Dec. 16-20 in Washington D.C, USTR added. The Obama Administration canceled the last round of TTIP negotiations, slated for October, due to the government shutdown (see 13100418). Industry leaders pressed comprehensive tariff elimination in a final TTIP pact, along with possible hikes in de minimis levels, during an Oct. 30 Senate Finance Committee hearing (see 13103107). Email ITTNews@warren-news.com for a copy of the USTR release.

The U.S., along with Mexico and Chile, will be hosting a number of Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations with TPP participant nations throughout November, the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) said in an Oct. 31 statement. The meetings are scheduled as follows:

The U.S.-Panama free-trade agreement has removed duties on 87 percent of U.S. consumer and industrial product exports and more than half of agricultural exports, contributing to a 17 percent rise in exports to Panama from November 2012 to August 2013 compared to the preceding period, the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) said in an Oct. 31 press release. More tariffs are continuing to phase-out, said the release. The agreement marks its one-year anniversary, after entering into force on Oct. 31, 2012.

The Obama Administration is pursuing arguably the most ambitious trade agenda in U.S. history to increase U.S. exports, raise international trade standards, address emerging dynamics and strengthen the global multilateral trading system, said U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman at the Economist Buttonwood conference on Oct. 30, according to a release. “That’s why we’re pursuing the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (T-TIP), which together will allow us to conduct free trade with economies representing nearly two-thirds of global GDP,” said Froman. “It’s also why we’ve pressed for a binding agreement on trade facilitation at the WTO -- which has the potential to reduce the costs of customs, clearance, logistics, border measures, and other inefficiencies by 10 percent for developed countries and nearly 14 percent for developing countries -- estimated to increase global incomes by literally hundreds of billions of dollars.” The U.S. is also pursuing Bilateral Investment Treaty (BIT) negotiation with China, while aiming to deepen trade ties with India, Brazil, Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East, said Froman.

The U.S. tobacco provisions for the Trans-Pacific Partnership render health protection measures weak, likely fueling greater consumption of a deadly product, said dozens of House lawmakers in an Oct. 30 letter to President Barack Obama. Proposed at the Brunei negotiations this month, the measures scale back previously strong U.S., health safeguards, said the lawmakers. “They are a step backward from the approach described by the United States last year, which included a clear 'safe harbor' provision to preserve regulations that protect the public from the dangers of tobacco products,” said the lawmakers. “We are also concerned that the USTR position be consistent with the letter and spirit of the Doggett Amendment, which prohibits the United States government from promoting tobacco products.”

The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) rescheduled a public hearing regarding Chinese compliance with World Trade Organization (WTO) commitments, the agency said in a press release. The hearing is meant to help USTR prepare its annual report to Congress on Chinese WTO compliance. China acceded to the WTO in 2001. The meeting was originally scheduled for Oct. 4.

BitTorrent indexing sites, cyberlockers and online forums were identified as notorious markets in comments on an out-of-cycle review by the U.S. Trade Representative. Comments in docket USTR-2013-0030 were due Oct. 28

The Guatemalan government must quickly pass legislation that ensures employer accountability for labor rights violations and a contingency mechanism for workers that lose wages in export enterprises that close, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) said on Oct. 25 (here). Should Guatemala fail to pass such legislation, the U.S. may reactivate an arbitration panel established in a 2011 labor enforcement case brought under the Dominican Republic-Central America-United States Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA-DR), the USTR said. The U.S. imports $3.1 billion in goods from Guatemala and exports $3.9 billion in goods annually, according to USTR statistics (here).