Trade cheats beware: new U.S. team will come after you

Daktoria · Jan 29, 2012

The rise of consumerist gunboat diplomacy is upon us. America is getting ready to throw its weight around just to secure supply chains. Whatever happened to free trade?

http://news.yahoo.com/trade-cheats-beware-u-team-come-kirk-050727798.html

DAVOS, Switzerland (Reuters) - A new team of U.S. trade enforcers will make countries think twice about putting up unfair barriers to American exports, President Barack Obama's top trade official said.U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk told Reuters that the team, announced by Obama last week, will include intelligence officials as well as representatives of other agencies in order to beef up U.S. resources and crack open markets.

"We want to make sure we aren't resource-constrained. Other countries know our budget and our resources ... and so they'll game the system because they know that we're very discriminating on which cases we make," Kirk said in an interview.

"We don't want them to make ... that bet that we don't have the resources to come after them if they're intentionally and unfairly discriminating against American exporters," Kirk said, speaking on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

He did not identify countries that could attract the attention of the unit, but Obama is under pressure to show business and voters he is taking a tough stance against China. Republican presidential candidates have slammed Obama's handling of Beijing ahead of November's elections. The U.S. trade deficit with China is expected to have hit a record of about $300 billion in 2011. Obama has set a target of doubling total U.S. exports between 2010 and 2015.

Kirk's office negotiates and enforces trade deals. But it has only about 250 employees, which could tempt countries to think they can flout world trade rules, Kirk said.

"This (the new unit) will provide a much better tool basket and put more bodies in terms of being able to develop some of these cases and gather the intelligence that is necessary to take some of these complex matters before the World Trade Organization," he said.

"There will be additional people, some additional resources," Kirk said without providing details of any extra funding for the unit.

FOCUS ON COLLABORATION

Obama announced the team during his January 24 State of the Union speech in which he said the United States needs to do more to tackle unfair foreign trade practices and rebuild American manufacturing.

As well as officials with the Commerce Department, which Obama is proposing to close as part of a government streamlining, customs personnel will also work with the unit, Kirk said.

"Even some of the intelligence agencies will be working collaboratively together" on the project, Kirk said.

Obama said last week his administration was more forceful than that of his predecessor in the White House, George W. Bush, in challenging other countries at the World Trade Organization.

Washington has filed six WTO cases since Obama took office in January 2009, five of them against China. Bush brought seven cases against China in his two terms although for most of his first year in office, China was not yet a member of the WTO.

U.S. trade officials say their main complaints against China are barriers to its agricultural and services markets, discriminatory industrial policies and weak intellectual property rights protection.

Kirk told Reuters in the interview, which was conducted on Thursday, that his office would lead the team. Trade is likely to be high on the agenda when Obama hosts China's likely next leader, Vice President Xi Jinping, at the White House on February 14. China has complained about anti-dumping duties applied to its exports to the United States and about restrictions on Chinese companies seeking to invest in U.S. firms.
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fiddlerdave · Jan 29, 2012

Daktoria said: ↑

The rise of consumerist gunboat diplomacy is upon us. America is getting ready to throw its weight around just to secure supply chains. Whatever happened to free trade?
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Plenty of countries close their markets to the USA in a variety of ways, while demanding open markets from the USA for THEIR products.

Countries like China spends BILLIONS on lobbying, PR, contributions to our political process, and their governmrnt's work to keep trade barriers DOWN int he USA.

But in China, their markets are closed tot he USA in many ways, and the USA does little or nothing.

This program is ESSENTIAL and a fantastic thing to be doing with government resources. It is a much wiser use of resources and tax money than true "gunboats" and bombs.

Our use of TRILLIONS of tax dollars on weapons has been idiocy.

Albert Di Salvo · Jan 29, 2012

Young american workers are too poorly educated to compete globally.

waltky · Oct 7, 2012

Uncle Ferd says purt soon dey gonna be makin' their own Ford's an' Chevy's, won't need to buy ours...

Chinas theft of trade secrets serious
Fri, Oct 05, 2012 - RISING THREAT: A US government panel was told that US companies are increasingly dealing with Chinese state-supported theft of trade secrets, piracy and counterfeiting

Chinese theft of valuable US trade secrets, often obtained by sophisticated cyberattacks, is becoming a more serious problem, US industry officials said on Wednesday. This matter requires more attention, Jeremie Waterman, head of the US Chamber of Commerces China division, told a US government panel hosted by the US Trade Representatives office. It has risen substantially in importance over the last year, year and a half, Waterman said at an annual hearing on Chinas compliance with WTO rules. In one recent case, two Chinese citizens in Kansas City, Missouri, were charged with attempting to pay US$100,000 for stolen trade secrets from Pittsburgh Corning Corp, an affiliate of PPG Industries Inc and Corning Inc, at its Sedalia, Missouri, facility. The Justice Department said the pair were trying to purchase the trade secrets so a rival plant could be opened in China.

US chemicals giant Dupont also is in the midst of a legal battle over allegations that China-based Pangang Group Steel Vanadium & Titanium Co. conspired to steal its trade secrets. Earlier this year, the New York Times reported that an Austrian-based employee of the Massachusetts wind-energy company American Superconductor stole intellectual property from the firm and sold it to Chinese wind-turbine manufacturer Sinovel for US$1.5 million. Peter Dent, a vice president at Electron Energy Corp, told the government panel that both large and small US companies face persistent and increasingly complex cyberattacks [from China] in an effort to steal intellectual property from company computer networks.

Defending trade secrets against the attacks was very difficult and a costly drain on resources, he said. Companies need the US government to take action, which could include suspending trade benefits to countries sponsoring these actions, Dent said. The DuPont, Pittsburgh Corning and American Superconductor cases are just the tip of the iceberg, a US industry official said. US companies are dealing with rampant state-supported theft of trade secrets, he said. The hearing on Wednesday was part of USTRs annual evaluation of how well China is meeting the commitments it made to join the WTO in 2001. A report is usually released on Dec. 11, the anniversary of Beijings accession to the WTO.

US exports to China have soared since China joined the WTO in 2001 and the country is now the third-largest foreign market for US goods. However, business groups told the USTR-led panel that China maintains an extensive web of discriminatory policies that prevent US companies from making additional sales and investments in the worlds second-largest economy. Both the US Chamber of Commerce and the US-China Business Council called on Wednesday for a bilateral investment treaty that would open up areas of the Chinese economy to investments by US companies. China maintains foreign ownership restrictions in nearly 100 business sectors, the business groups said. Industry officials also complained about continuing Chinese piracy and counterfeiting of US goods, and urged the US government to aggressively challenge Chinese government subsidies that undermine US competitiveness.

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/biz/archives/2012/10/05/2003544385
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Rusty Houser · Mar 27, 2013

If you are in any way predicting that the US will do something logical,don't hold your breath.Also, with the US promoting an agenda which list immorality and foolishness as it's #1 priorities, any success will only preclude the coming unraveling.

happy fun dude · Mar 27, 2013

"We don't want them to make ... that bet that we don't have the resources to come after them if they're intentionally and unfairly discriminating against American exporters..."

Hey BO, isn't that EXACTLY what you're doing when you pile economic sanctions onto some country you don't like? We will stop people doing business with countries we don't like by PROSECUTING people who dare do business with that country, but at the same time we are going to (*)(*)(*)(*)(*) and whine about some other countries discriminating on our products.

I thought for sure BO and the monster of a US federal government would eventually run out of ways to be complete hypocrites, and yet they surprise me again, each and every day!

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Trade cheats beware: new U.S. team will come after you

Daktoria New Member

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Trade cheats beware: new U.S. team will come after you

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