Office of the United States Trade Representative August 2011 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

The African Growth and Opportunity Act Implementation Subcommittee of the Trade Policy Staff Committee (the ``Subcommittee'') is requesting written public comments for the interim review of the eligibility of Cote d'Ivoire, Guinea, and Niger to receive the benefits of the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA). The Subcommittee will consider these comments in developing recommendations on AGOA country eligibility for the President. Comments received related to the child labor criteria may also be considered by the Secretary of Labor for the preparation of the Department of Labor's report on child labor as required under section 412(c) of the Trade and Development Act of 2000. This notice identifies the eligibility criteria that must be considered under the AGOA. Cote d'Ivoire, Guinea, and Niger are currently ineligible for AGOA benefits.

Pursuant to section 181 of the Trade Act of 1974, as amended (19 U.S.C. 2241), the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) is required to publish annually the National Trade Estimate Report on Foreign Trade Barriers (NTE). With this notice, the Trade Policy Staff Committee (TPSC) is requesting interested persons to submit comments to assist it in identifying significant barriers to U.S. exports of goods, services, and U.S. foreign direct investment for inclusion in the NTE. Once again, the TPSC is requesting that comments on standards- related measures and sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) measures that create barriers to U.S. exports be submitted separately from other NTE comments. This will assist USTR in updating two reports issued in 2011 in conjunction with the release of the NTE highlighting SPS and standards-related measures that may be inconsistent with international trade agreements to which the United States is a party or that otherwise act as significant barriers to U.S. exports. These reports were published as the 2011 Report on Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures (2011 SPS Report) and the 2011 Report on Technical Barriers to Trade (2011 TBT Report) respectively. The TPSC invites written comments from the public on issues that USTR should examine in preparing the NTE and the reports on SPS and standards-related measures.

The Trade Policy Staff Committee (TPSC) is seeking the views of interested parties on the operation of the Caribbean Basin Economic Recovery Act (CBERA), as amended by the Caribbean Basin Trade Partnership Act (CBTPA) (19 U.S.C. 2701 et seq.). Section 212(f) of the CBERA, as amended, requires the President to submit a report to Congress regarding the operation of the CBERA and CBTPA (together commonly referred to as the Caribbean Basin Initiative, or CBI) on or before December 31, 2001, and every two years thereafter. The TPSC invites written comments concerning the operation of the CBI, including comments on the performance of each CBERA and CBTPA beneficiary country, as the case may be, under the criteria described in sections 212(b), 212(c), and 213(b)(5)(B) of the CBERA, as amended. This information will be used in the preparation of a report to the U.S. Congress on the operation of the program.