Gee, Trade Negotiations Are Confusing

There is lot going on in the lead up to the next meeting in the Doha round of trade negotiations. The U.S. is pushing what it calls the Doha Development Agenda which consists of four components:

  • Agricultural market access (with a limited emphasis on the elimination of subsidies)
  • Industrial products market access
  • Services
  • Trade facilitation
While trying to promote this agenda of trade liberalization, the U.S. and other developed countries have to balance the different economic needs of the developing world. There are more than a billion people in the world living in poverty. The Doha agenda includes a mandate that developing countries receive "special and differential treatment" to assist them in more fully integrating into the global economy. These countries can opt for more limited liberalization and longer phase-in periods for changes in trade rules.

There are lots of competing interests in these talks. The most obvious friction results from the facts that the developing world's agenda does not always match up to the desires of the developed world. There are also a lot of industrial sectors that come into conflict. For every industry willing to trade lower tariffs for access to foreign markets, there is another legitimately seeking to maintain tariffs to protect market share, jobs, capital investment, etc. At the same time, there are non-governmental groups seeking to ensure that trade negotiations support the environment, labor interests, human rights, and other interests. And, in the past few years, there have been vocal groups opposed to globalization as a concept.

Balancing all this is hard enough without the confusing fact every group of countries taking a position seems to become known as the G-something. There is the G8 (Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, U.K., and the U.S.) group of industrialized countries. Recently, the G20 has been active (along with Australia) in pushing for market access in agricultural goods. There is also a G4 (India, Germany, Japan, and Brazil) looking for membership in the U.N. Security Council. And now comes the G33 group of developing countries active in the WTO agriculture negotiations. Oddly, there is an 11-member G10 (Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland, the United
Kingdom and the United States) which issued an impressive report on financial consolidation. This may or may not be the same G10 that just got the support of Norway on on agricultural duty reductions. Then there is the Quad Group consisting of the U.S., Canada, Japan, and the EU.

I think people who pull together these groups need to be more creative in naming them. I suggest following the lead of college sports where the number of members is tacked on to something other than the letter G. There is, for example, the Pacific-10, Atlantic-10, and my personal favorite, the Big-10. Of course, the fact that the Big-10 consists of eleven schools does not do much for my effort to avoid confusion.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

CAFC Decision in Double Invoicing Case

The Federal Circuit has issued a decision on the merits in United States v. Inn Foods, Inc.  There had been a previous decision on jurisdiction, which was followed by a trial at the Court of International Trade and then this appeal on the substance. The initial issue is whether Inn Foods' invoicing practice amounts to fraud.  Inn Foods had been receiving an invoice from growers in Mexico that had a relatively low sales prices on it.  Subsequent to entry, Inn Foods created a second invoice at something more similar to market value, retaining the original invoice number, and paid at that higher amount.   Superficially, this looks like a standard-issue double-invoicing scheme.  But, in the age of reconciliation, is it really more like a provisional pricing mechanism?  It might have been possible to make that argument had Inn Foods adjusted its entries accordingly.  It didn't and the loss of revenue was approximately $624,000.  Based on testimony and evidence indicating both knowl
Read more

Ninestar and UFLPA Exhaustion

Image
Exhaustion is a key doctrine in administrative law. When applicable, it requires that a party unhappy with an agency’s determination complete the administrative appeal process before turning to the courts for judicial review. Requiring exhaustion typically promotes judicial efficiency by ensuring that disputes are resolved at the agency and, if they are not, that there is a complete record of the agency process. Exhaustion also ensures that the judiciary respects the executive agencies and their expertise.  There are, on the other hand, times when the courts will find that exhaustion is not necessary or appropriate. Such is the case in  Ninestar Corporation et al. v. United States  et al., a decision of the U.S. Court of International Trade.  Ninestar is also interesting because it is one of the first cases in the CIT involving the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, known as UFLPA. In my hiatus from active blogging, I missed the rise of UFLPA as a major compliance topic. So, let's
Read more

Precious Tritium

Image
One thing I have learned as a customs lawyer who does a lot of classification work is that there are millions of odd items moving in international trade the existence of which I am completely ignorant. Such is the case of the gaseous tritium light sources used in, among other things, firearm sights. These things use tritium sealed in a glass that has been coated in phosphor. The radioactive tritium decays, releasing beta particles, which interact with the phosphor causing it to emit light. In other words, it creates light with no external power source. Pretty cool.  Tritium is, of course, a real thing. It is an isotope of hydrogen. We know this from the excellent documentary "Spider-Man." This comes up in relation to the Court of International Trade decision in Trijicon, Inc. v. United States  in which the importer challenged the tariff classification of several versions of the gaseous tritium light sources ("GTLS"). The plaintiff uses them to make gun sights. The
Read more