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

Summary

Sets the main U.S. goals for trade talks about services, foreign investment, and high-technology goods. For services, the aim is to cut or remove rules that block U.S. service companies from foreign markets and to win international rules and dispute procedures that make trade fair and open. For foreign direct investment, the goal is to remove unfair or trade-hurting limits, expand the idea that foreign firms should be treated like local firms, and get rules that keep investment flowing and stop measures that distort trade. In both areas, negotiators must consider U.S. domestic goals like protecting health and safety, national security, the environment, consumers, and job opportunities, and the related laws. For high-technology products, the goal is the widest possible openness for trade and investment. The U.S. seeks to fix or get compensation for foreign government actions that hurt U.S. high-tech exports or investment, such as industrial policies that distort trade, discrimination against foreign firms, weak protection of intellectual property, limits on market access for key goods, and practices that reduce competition. The U.S. also wants promises not to block buying foreign high-tech goods, cuts or removal of tariffs and other barriers, fair treatment for foreign firms, support for joint scientific cooperation with shared access to results, and minimum protections for intellectual property and proprietary data. “Barriers” include limits on setting up or running businesses abroad and rules that restrict moving information in or out of a country or using data-processing facilities.