International Trade Administration March 3, 2011 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

The U.S. Government recognizes that economic recovery and job creation will depend significantly on its ability to work collaboratively with key trading partners to promote free and open trade and investment. In our trade and investment relationships with Mexico and Canada, and within North America as a whole, the main impediments to greater trade and investmentand more open foreign markets for U.S. exporters and investorsare not tariffs or quotas, but rather unnecessary differences in product regulations that increase costs for producers and consumers in the United States, Canada, and Mexico. With this Notice, the Commerce Department, on behalf of the Administration, is seeking public input to help identify such divergences in North America, so that the U.S. Government can work cooperatively with Mexico and Canada to address them. President Obama explicitly linked trade to job creation when he announced the National Export Initiative in his 2010 State of the Union address, and set the ambitious goal of doubling U.S. exports in the next five years to support millions of jobs here at home. The President has focused particularly on efforts to remove unnecessary divergences in regulations with Canada and Mexico, our first and second largest export markets, respectively, and officials from the three countries have discussed strengthening regulatory cooperation to promote better regulation and facilitate trade, both bilaterally and trilaterally. President Obama met with President Felipe Calder[oacute]n of Mexico and Prime Minister Stephen Harper of Canada at the the North American Leaders' Summit on August 10, 2009, in Guadalajara, Mexico. In the joint statement they issued at the end of that meeting they noted the progress that each of their governments had made in reducing unnecessary regulatory differences and they instructed their respective governments, ``* * * to continue this work by building on the previous efforts, developing focused priorities and a specific timeline.'' The United States Government is working with both Mexico and Canada to reduce unnecessary regulatory differences and to explore further regulatory cooperation activities aimed at reducing or eliminating such differences where they hinder trade and reduce competitiveness. In order to do so, the United States has established a High-Level Regulatory Cooperation Council with Mexico and a Regulatory Cooperation Council with Canada. While these councils are bilateral, regulatory divergences exist that have consequences for firms in all three countries. Therefore, with this Notice, the Department of Commerce's International Trade Administration (ITA), in support of the National Export Initiative (NEI) and pursuant to the Secretary of Commerce's role as the chair of Trade Promotion Coordinating Committee, is requesting stakeholders to assist the Administration to identify opportunities for cooperation between or among the United States, Canada, and Mexico to reduce or eliminate regulatory divergences that disrupt trade in goods in the region, as well as any existing or emerging sectors that may benefit from regulatory coordination between these countries. Canada has already solicited similar input from its stakeholders, and Mexico has committed to do the same.

Based on affirmative final determinations by the Department of Commerce (the ``Department'') and the International Trade Commission (the ``ITC''), the Department is issuing an antidumping duty order on drill pipe from the People's Republic of China (``PRC''). On February 24, 2011, the ITC notified the Department of its affirmative determination of threat of material injury to a U.S. industry, and its negative determination of critical circumstances. See Drill Pipe and Drill Collars from China (Investigation Nos. 701-TA-474 and 731-TA-1176 (Final), USITC Publication 4213, February 2011).