Last week I was privy to a discussion with the U.S. Trade
Representative Michael Froman on international trade and in particular, the
state of two trade agreements currently being negotiated, namely the Trans-Pacific
Partnership (“TPP”) and the Trans Atlantic Trade Partnership (“T-TIP”).
More info. on TPP can be found at http://www.ustr.gov/tpp
More info. on T-TIP can be found at http://www.ustr.gov/ttip
Whether you like it or not, negotiations continue to advance
on both the T-TIP and TTP as the government’s position steadfastly remains that
through trade agreements, foreign markets are opened up allowing for increased
sales of US products.
As described by Ambassador Froman, only 1% of small and
medium sized businesses throughout the nation export. The government wants to streamline procedures
to enable them to engage in greater export sales, including via e-commerce,
since over 90% of exporters are small and medium sized businesses, out of about
a total of 300,000 exporting companies.
Export related jobs pay 13% to 18% more than non-export jobs.
In addition to export increases, other benefits cited
include an ability to create “rules of the road” on things we (in the United
States) care about, including environmental and intellectual property
protections, as well as “leveling the playing field” with respect to worker’s rights.
Ambassador Froman further highlighted the benefits of the “InformationTechnology Agreement” expansion talks which had been postponed for a year but apparently will
support 60,000 new U.S. jobs, in addition to the new "Trade Facilitation Agreement" between
India and the US, which will reduce the costs of trade and other procedures by
10% for developing countries and 14% for developed ones.
Questions/comments?
Post below or email me at clark.deanna@gmail.com
On Twitter @fashcompliance
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