USTR readies steps to increased trade enforcement

USTR readies steps to increased trade enforcement

Kirk

   The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative is carrying out President Obama’s promise to step up trade enforcement by soliciting public comments on standards-related measures that impede U.S. producers’ abilities to access overseas markets.
   The information gathering also includes a USTR review of sanitary and phytosanitary measures restricting U.S. agricultural exports.
   U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk first unveiled the administration’s new enforcement tools in July in an address to steelworkers in Braddock, Pa.
   “We are heightening USTR’s focus on some of the most significant barriers that our exporters face, so that trade can be a more effective tool for restoring this country’s economy,” Kirk said in a statement on Thursday.
   The USTR’s request for comments was published in the Federal Register.