The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative is seeking applicants to serve on dispute settlement panels required for some trade agreements to which the U.S. is a party, it said in a Federal Register notice. The agreements include the U.S.-Australia Free Trade Agreement, the U.S.-Colombia Trade Promotion Agreement, the U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement, the U.S.-Morocco Free Trade Agreement, and the U.S.-Singapore Free Trade Agreement. Applications should be received by Aug. 9 at www.regulations.gov, docket number USTR-2012-0009. Further information: Catherine Field, 202-395-3432.

The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative is seeking comments on China's request for World Trade Organization consultations with the U.S. about countervailing duty determinations and orders by the International Trade Administration on imports of the products from China (see ITT's Online Archives 12052537).

Parties to the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) Agreement invited Canada to join the TPP negotiations, pending successful conclusion of domestic procedures, they said at the G20 meeting. Canada, like Mexico (see ITT's Online Archives [Ref.12061837]) had previously indicated strong interest in joining TPP ([Ref.12040419]). In addition to the U.S., current TPP countries are Australia, Brunei Darussalam, Chile, Malaysia, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, and Vietnam. Next steps will parallel those for Mexico. The Administration will shortly notify Congress of our intent to include Canada in the TPP negotiations. The notification will trigger a 90-day consultation period with Congress on U.S. negotiating objectives with respect to Canada. Comments will be sought via a Federal Register notice. The TPP countries have completed 12 rounds of negotiations and the nine countries have made what U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk called solid progress. The next round of negotiations is scheduled for July 2-10 in San Diego.

U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk said a negotiating team led by USTR reached an agreement with Mauritius on a set of non-binding trade-related principles for information and communication technology (ICT) services. The U.S. and Mauritius will jointly promote the adoption of these principles by other countries.

U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk's door is open to academics skeptical of the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations among the U.S. and other countries, Kirk wrote in response to a group of law professors who had complained specifically about poor transparency in intellectual-property chapter negotiations in Dallas in May. Kirk's letter, dated May 30, was made public by the IP program at American University's law school. Kirk told the academics the Obama administration invites participation from stakeholders "far beyond the 'cleared advisers'" who serve in its advisory committee system, and his office "would welcome the opportunity to sit down with you and your colleagues" to discuss TPP negotiation, just as negotiators "spoke directly" to more than 300 individuals and 45 organizations that attended the Dallas stakeholder event. The academics had criticized the shift from "full day open forums" for stakeholders to make presentations to negotiators, to a "4-hour mid-day ... exhibit hall for stakeholder tables."

The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative is seeking comments on its May 11 request for a dispute settlement panel at the World Trade Organization with the government of India about measures imposed by India on the import of agricultural products from the U.S., purportedly because of concerns about avian influenza (see ITT's Online Archives 12051405). Comments should be submitted by July 5, it said, to www.regulations.gov, docket number USTR-2012-0004. Further information: Mayur Patel, 202-395-3150.

The International Sugar Trade Coalition (ISTC) urged the U.S. to maintain its policy against reopening terms of access established in existing bilateral free trade agreements, and therefore to not provide additional access to Australian sugar, in a letter to U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk. The ISTC, which represents sugar industries in developing countries that traditionally supply the U.S. market with sugar, sent the letter in response to arguments to increase Australia’s access to the U.S. market in an earlier letter by U.S. business associations to the USTR.

The Secretary of Labor and the U.S. Trade Representative said they plan to renew the Labor Advisory Committee for Trade Negotiations and Trade Policy. The committee consults with and makes recommendations on general policy matters concerning labor and trade negotiations, operations of any trade agreement once entered into, and other matters arising in connection with the administration of U.S. trade policy, they said in a Federal Register notice to be published May 25. The committee will have up to 30 members representing the labor community, and will meet at irregular intervals at the call of the Secretary of Labor and USTR. Further information: Anne Zollner, 202-693-4890.

Teams of American and European negotiators are working to examine a wide range of possibilities to boost U.S.-EU trade, U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk said in a speech May 22 to the London School of Economics. He said they include: eliminating conventional barriers to trade in goods, such as tariffs and tariff-rate quotas; reducing barriers to trade in services, and to transatlantic investment; promoting regulatory approaches that facilitate trade; reducing, eliminating, or preventing in the first place behind-the-border barriers to trade in all categories; and developing rules and principles on other global issues that are of common concern. "We have agreed to be both ambitious and realistic as we establish our negotiating parameters and goals," Kirk said.

There was better-than-expected progress on the latest round of talks on the Trans-Pacific Partnership, said U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk. The 12th-round meeting of Australia, Brunei Darussalam, Chile, Malaysia, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the U.S. and Vietnam concluded May 16 in Dallas. Negotiators said the round further narrowed differences in the text and the teams can now see a clear path forward toward conclusion of most of the more than 20 chapters of the agreement, the USTR office said, as a handful of TPP negotiating groups continue to meet in Texas for the remainder of the week.