Some secrecy needed in trade talks: Ron Kirk

The United States is being as open as possible about international negotiations to create a nine-nation free trade agreement in the Asia-Pacific region but has to maintain some secrecy in the talks, the ...

US Trade Representative Ron Kirk said talks were on track to reach the outline of a trans-Pacific trade deal next month, and vowed to move quickly afterward to complete the agreement.Nine Asia-Pacific nations have set the goal of reaching the framework on the so-called Trans-Pacific Partnership in time for a November 12-13 summit in Hawaii of leaders from the APEC forum including US President Barack Obama.

In the next few weeks, the Department of Commerce is scheduled to release a series of determinations regarding antidumping (AD) and countervailing duty (CVD) investigations. In light of this, we wanted to share an explanation of the process. Following U.S. law, regulation, and consistent with international trade rules, the Department of Commerce (Commerce) has the authority to conduct investigations of the alleged subsidization or dumping of foreign products sold in the United States.    If a U.S. industry believes that it is being injured by dumped or subsidized imports, it may request the imposition of antidumping or countervailing duties by filing a petition with both the Department of Commerce and the United States International Trade Commission (ITC). Import Administration is the agency within Commerce’s International Trade Administration that investigates foreign producers and governments to determine whether dumping or subsidization has occurred and calculates the amount of dumping or subsidization. If Commerce determines that a petition satisfies all requirements under the law to initiate an investigation, the agency will publish a Notice of Initiation in the Federal Register. The Notice of Initiation will lay out a general history of the proceeding, including dates of official filings as well as the scope of the investigation, explain how Commerce went about making a determination of industry support, and details how the petitioners went about estimating the existence of dumping or subsidization.

The OECD recently concluded a giant new report on the effects of open markets on employment, and the consensus conclusion couldn't be any clearer: free trade is awesome.  In the process of coming to that (admittedly broad and obvious) conclusion, the authors of the myriad studies included in the final OECD Report also debunk a whole host of protectionist myths still floating around out there about imports, jobs and outsourcing (President Obama, please

The European Union on Tuesday called for unconditional talks with the United States to resolve the Boeing-Airbus dispute over subsidies currently being heard at the World Trade Organization.The United States said it was prepared for any discussions but insisted that they had to address "WTO-inconsistent" subsidies to commercial aircraft."I think there should be negotiations without preconditions," EU Trade Commissioner Karel De Gucht told reporters after talks with the top US trade official, Ron Kirk, and other senior US officials.

WTO chief Pascal Lamy was in Washington Wednesday for talks with US officials and lawmakers amid an uphill effort to wrap up the long-running Doha Round of global trade talks by this year.Lamy met with US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, a Treasury spokesman told AFP, but declined to provide details about their talks.And, according to the Geneva-based World Trade Organization, Lamy is scheduled to hold separate talks with President Barack Obama's top trade official Ron Kirk and US lawmakers.

China's President Hu Jintao met with top Taiwan politician Lien Chan on Saturday, a Chinese official told AFP, in rare talks expected to have covered a landmark trade agreement."President Hu met with Lien Chan this morning from 9.00am to 9.45am (0100-0145 GMT). We can confirm that," a Chinese government spokeswoman told AFP, adding she had no details on the content of the discussions.Both sides have expressed hopes that the talks, on the sidelines of an Asia-Pacific summit in Singapore, will see progress towards the proposed Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA).