Information Technology Agreement

Board members and executives from BSA | The Software Alliance met with members of Congress and the administration this week to propose a digital trade agenda for a modernized NAFTA and endorse the continued operation of the U.S.- EU Privacy Shield. “NAFTA is the place to start,” Victoria Espinel, president and CEO of BSA | The Software Alliance, said in a May 22 statement ahead of the meetings. “These improvements are critical for the modern economy. NAFTA is an opportunity...

Business groups that approached this week's U.S.-India Strategic and Commercial Dialogue with varying expectations are now offering dramatically different views on the progress made at the Aug. 30-31 meeting in New Delhi of high-level government officials from both countries. Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker co-chaired the so-called S&CD with Secretary of State John Kerry, Indian Minister of External Affairs Sushma Swaraj and Indian Minister of Commerce and Industry Nirmala Sitharaman. Amy Hariani, the director and legal policy counsel at the U.S.-India...

Additional members of the World Trade Organization this week joined the U.S., EU and Japan in separate committee meetings to press India to explain why tariffs on a number of products allegedly covered under the plurilateral 1996 Information Technology Agreement were not in violation of its commitments under that trade deal. Geneva sources said the issue was raised in both the Committee on the Expansion of Information Technology Products meeting on Monday (April 18) and the Market Access Committee meeting...

The U.S., Japan and European Union are pressing India at the World Trade Organization to explain tariffs on four products that they believe violate India's obligations under the 1996 Information Technology Agreement. The allegation came in an April 4 communication during an ITA committee meeting, in which the three countries asked India six questions aimed at confirming that tariffs on four information technology products were raised from zero to 10 percent in 2014 and that those products are covered by...