USTR

The Bush Administration and ambassadors from five Central American governments and the Dominican Republic will meet today to discuss the potential implications of a recently passed Guatemalan pharmaceutical law that the U.S. Trade Representative's Office believes violates the provisions of the U.S.-Central America-Dominican Republic Free Trade Agreement (DR-CAFTA). The law eliminates a five-year data protection period for patented drug companies' clinical trial data. Today's meeting comes despite assurances from Guatemalan President Oscar Berger that he will work to resolve the...

United States Chamber of Commerce President and Chief Executive Officer Thomas Donohue today (Nov. 16) said that he is "not persuaded" that U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick will leave early on in a second Bush Administration. He speculated that Zoellick would like to stay awhile given the many trade issues that face USTR next year and the other changes occurring in the cabinet. But he said he was not sure how long he would continue his tenure at USTR, where...

A U.S. trade official today (Oct. 13) held open the possibility that the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative would delay a procedural step with respect to the U.S.-Australia free-trade agreement that could delay its implementation on Jan. 1, 2005. That procedural step covers an exchange of diplomatic notes by which each country certifies that the other's implementing legislation fulfills the obligations of the FTA. Copyright and pharmaceutical industries have raised problems to USTR about the Australian implementing legislation for...

The latest round of free trade agreement negotiations between the U.S. and three Andean nations ended this week with the Bush Administration denying that U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick would resign following November's presidential election. A September 13 Colombian press report said U.S. officials attending the fourth round of FTA talks, held in Puerto Rico, had told their Colombian counterparts the negotiations would have to finish before January 20, the day President Bush or Senator John Kerry (D-MA) will be...

U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick today (April 26) told business supporters that the Senate should move to a vote on fast-track legislation, regardless of whether Democrats and Republicans have reached a final deal on the scope of health care benefits for displaced workers under the Trade Adjustment Assistance bill. Democrats want to pass an expanded TAA with the fast-track bill. "This bill should be about trade, not developing some new entitlement program," Zoellick said in an address to the U.S...