§2114a Negotiating Objectives with Respect to Trade in Services, Foreign Direct Investment, and High Technology Products

Summary

Directs U.S. trade negotiators to work to open foreign markets for U.S. services and to cut down or remove rules that block or distort service trade. They must also help create agreed international rules and ways to settle disputes that match U.S. trade goals. While doing this, negotiators must consider valid U.S. goals like protecting health, safety, national security, the environment, consumers, and jobs and the laws that support those goals. The same approach applies to foreign direct investment: negotiators must push to remove unfair investment barriers, make sure foreign firms are treated as fairly as domestic ones, ease rules that stop companies from setting up abroad, and create rules that help investment flow freely and reduce trade-distorting measures. For high-technology goods and related services, negotiators must aim for the greatest openness in trade and investment. They must work to stop or offset foreign government actions that distort trade, such as biased industrial policies, discrimination against foreign high-tech firms, weak protection for patents and copyrights, limits on market access for key products, or practices that reduce competition. They must seek promises that governments will not block buying foreign high-tech goods, cut all tariffs and other barriers on U.S. high-tech exports, promote equal treatment, support joint scientific cooperation with fair access to results, and protect intellectual property and proprietary data. Finally, barriers to services include stopping companies from entering markets and rules that limit operating there, like blocking information flows or use of data processing.