effectively," said Ambassador Barshefsky.
Ambassador Barshefsky also announced the Administration's trade expansion priorities for 2000. In addition to the enforcement actions, these include: completing China's accession to the WTO, securing enactment of legislation to promote trade with certain regions, advancing negotiations for the Free Trade Area of the Americas, and continuing multilateral negotiations to open markets to U.S. exports. (For a full description of USTR activities in these and other areas, see the President's 1999 Annual Report on the Trade Agreements Program.)
The United States is pursuing WTO action in the following areas:
- Customs Valuation Practices: The United States will request WTO consultations with with Brazil regarding its reference prices for certain textile products; and with Romania regarding its discriminatory reference prices for products such as clothing, poultry, and certain types of distilled spirits.
- Motor Vehicle Investment Measures: The United States will take the next step in its ongoing WTO dispute with India regarding measures governing investment in the automotive industry, such as requiring manufacturing firms to use, among other things, specified levels of local content. The United States will also request WTO consultations with the Philippines in a continuing effort to resolve questions concerning local content requirements on producers of motorcycles, automobiles and certain commercial vehicles.
- Intellectual Property Rights: The United States will request WTO dispute settlement consultations with Argentina regarding significant deficiencies in its patent regime, including its failure to grant exclusive marketing rights for certain technologies and to protect confidential test data submitted to government regulatory authorities for obtaining marketing approval. The United States will also consult with Brazil in the WTO regarding a longstanding difference of views on interpretation of the WTO Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) regarding a narrow aspect of Brazil's patent regime that can only be resolved through WTO dispute settlement. The United States will also proceed to a WTO panel with respect to Denmark's enforcement of intellectual property laws unless imminent progress is made.
The USTR has also described a number of trade practices of significant concern that may warrant stepped-up enforcement action in the near future. These include, among others:
- European Union-ongoing subsidization of Airbus by EU Member States;
- Japan-market access and competition problems in the flat glass sector and a significant and persistent pattern of discrimination that impedes access to Japan's public works market;
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