19 U.S.C. § 2901: Overall and principal trade negotiating objectives of the United States

more open, equitable, and reciprocal market access; the reduction or elimination of barriers and other trade-distorting policies and practices; and a more effective system of international trading disciplines and procedures. to provide for more effective and expeditious dispute settlement mechanisms and procedures; and to ensure that such mechanisms within the GATT and GATT agreements provide for more effective and expeditious resolution of disputes and enable better enforcement of United States rights. to enhance the status of the GATT; to improve the operation and extend the coverage of the GATT and such agreements and arrangements to products, sectors, and conditions of trade not adequately covered; and to expand country participation in particular agreements or arrangements, where appropriate. The principal negotiating objective of the United States regarding transparency is to obtain broader application of the principle of transparency and clarification of the costs and benefits of trade policy actions through the observance of open and equitable procedures in trade matters by Contracting Parties to the GATT. to ensure that developing countries promote economic development by assuming the fullest possible measure of responsibility for achieving and maintaining an open international trading system by providing reciprocal benefits and assuming equivalent obligations with respect to their import and export practices; and to establish procedures for reducing nonreciprocal trade benefits for the more advanced developing countries. The principal negotiating objective of the United States regarding current account surpluses is to develop rules to address large and persistent global current account imbalances of countries, including imbalances which threaten the stability of the international trading system, by imposing greater responsibility on such countries to undertake policy changes aimed at restoring current account equilibrium, including expedited implementation of trade agreements where feasible and appropriate. The principal negotiating objective of the United States regarding trade and monetary coordination is to develop mechanisms to assure greater coordination, consistency, and cooperation between international trade and monetary systems and institutions. developing, strengthening, and clarifying rules for agricultural trade, including disciplines on restrictive or trade-distorting import and export practices; increasing United States agricultural exports by eliminating barriers to trade (including transparent and nontransparent barriers) and reducing or eliminating the subsidization of agricultural production consistent with the United States policy of agricultural stabilization in cyclical and unpredictable markets; creating a free and more open world agricultural trading system by resolving questions pertaining to export and other trade-distorting subsidies, market pricing and market access and eliminating and reducing substantially other specific constraints to fair trade and more open market access, such as tariffs, quotas, and other nontariff practices, including unjustified phytosanitary and sanitary restrictions; and seeking agreements by which the major agricultural exporting nations agree to pursue policies to reduce excessive production of agricultural commodities during periods of oversupply, with due regard for the fact that the United States already undertakes such policies, and without recourse to arbitrary schemes to divide market shares among major exporting countries. to improve the provisions of the GATT and nontariff measure agreements in order to define, deter, discourage the persistent use of, and otherwise discipline unfair trade practices having adverse trade effects, including forms of subsidy and dumping and other practices not adequately covered such as resource input subsidies, diversionary dumping, dumped or subsidized inputs, and export targeting practices; to obtain the application of similar rules to the treatment of primary and nonprimary products in the Agreement on Interpretation and Application of Articles VI, XVI, and XXIII of the GATT (relating to subsidies and countervailing measures); and state trading enterprises, and substantial direct investment in the foreign country be made, intellectual property be licensed to the foreign country or to any firm of the foreign country, or other collateral concessions be made, to reduce or to eliminate barriers to, or other distortions of, international trade in services, including barriers that deny national treatment and restrictions on establishment and operation in such markets; and are consistent with the commercial policies of the United States, and will reduce or eliminate such barriers or distortions, and help ensure fair, equitable opportunities for foreign markets. In pursuing the negotiating objectives described in subparagraph (A), United States negotiators shall take into account legitimate United States domestic objectives including, but not limited to, the protection of legitimate health or safety, essential security, environmental, consumer or employment opportunity interests and the law and regulations related thereto. recognize and adequately protect intellectual property, including copyrights, patents, trademarks, semiconductor chip layout designs, and trade secrets, and provide protection against unfair competition, the standards in existing international agreements that provide adequate protection, and the standards in national laws if international agreement standards are inadequate or do not exist, to establish effective procedures to enforce, both internally and at the border, the standards implemented under clause (i), and to implement effective dispute settlement procedures that improve on existing GATT procedures; adequate and effective substantive norms and standards for the protection and enforcement of intellectual property rights, and dispute settlement provisions and enforcement procedures, to supplement and strengthen standards for protection and enforcement in existing international intellectual property conventions administered by other international organizations, including their expansion to cover new and emerging technologies and elimination of discrimination or unreasonable exceptions or preconditions to protection. to reduce or to eliminate artificial or trade-distorting barriers to foreign direct investment, to expand the principle of national treatment, and to reduce unreasonable barriers to establishment; and will help ensure a free flow of foreign direct investment, and will reduce or eliminate the trade distortive effects of certain trade-related investment measures. In pursuing the negotiating objectives described in subparagraph (A), United States negotiators shall take into account legitimate United States domestic objectives including, but not limited to, the protection of legitimate health or safety, essential security, environmental, consumer or employment opportunity interests and the law and regulations related thereto. to improve and expand rules and procedures covering safeguard measures; transparent, temporary, degressive, and subject to review and termination when no longer necessary to remedy injury and to facilitate adjustment; and to require notification of, and to monitor the use by, GATT Contracting Parties of import relief actions for their domestic industries. measures identified in the annual report prepared under section 2241 of this title ; and foreign tariffs and nontariff barriers on competitive United States exports when like or similar products enter the United States at low rates of duty or are duty-free, and other tariff disparities that impede access to particular export markets. to promote respect for worker rights; to secure a review of the relationship of worker rights to GATT articles, objectives, and related instruments with a view to ensuring that the benefits of the trading system are available to all workers; and to adopt, as a principle of the GATT, that the denial of worker rights should not be a means for a country or its industries to gain competitive advantage in international trade. restricting the participation of United States persons in government-supported research and development projects; denying equitable access by United States persons to government-held patents; requiring the approval or agreement of government entities, or imposing other forms of government interventions, as a condition for the granting of licenses to United States persons by foreign persons (except for approval or agreement which may be necessary for national security purposes to control the export of critical military technology); and otherwise denying equitable access by United States persons to foreign-developed technology or contributing to the inequitable flow of technology between the United States and its trading partners. In pursuing the negotiating objective described in subparagraph (A), the United States negotiators shall take into account United States Government policies in licensing or otherwise making available to foreign persons technology and other information developed by United States laboratories. The principal negotiating objective of the United States regarding border taxes is to obtain a revision of the GATT with respect to the treatment of border adjustments for internal taxes to redress the disadvantage to countries relying primarily for revenue on direct taxes rather than indirect taxes. in the last 10 years there has arisen a new global economy in which trade, technological development, investment, and services form an integrated system; and in this system these activities affect each other and the health of the United States economy; the United States is confronted with a fundamental disequilibrium in its trade and current account balances and a rapid increase in its net external debt; disparities between the macroeconomic policies of the major trading nations, the large United States budget deficit, instabilities and structural defects in the world monetary system, the growth of debt throughout the developing world, structural defects in the world trading system and inadequate enforcement of trade agreement obligations, governmental distortions and barriers, serious shortcomings in United States trade policy, and inadequate growth in the productivity and competitiveness of United States firms and industries relative to their overseas competition; to prevent future declines in the United States economy and standards of living, to ensure future stability in external trade of the United States, and to guarantee the continued vitality of the technological, industrial, and agricultural base of the United States; the President should be authorized and encouraged to negotiate trade agreements and related investment, financial, intellectual property, and services agreements that meet the standards set forth in this title [see Tables for classification]; and while the United States is not in a position to dictate economic policy to the rest of the world, the United States is in a position to lead the world and it is in the national interest for the United States to do so. authorize the negotiation of reciprocal trade agreements; strengthen United States trade laws; improve the development and management of United States trade strategy; and through these actions, improve standards of living in the world.”