United States Announces Trade Objectives With Indo-Pacific Partners

U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai, U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, and their counterparts from 13 other countries across the Indo-Pacific region recently announced formal negotiating objectives for the U.S.-led Indo-Pacific Economic Framework.

The negotiating objectives cover four pillars:

• The countries will aim to establish objectives that broadly stress an approach to trade and technology policies that promote “resilient, sustainable, and inclusive growth and development” and allow for “flexibilities where appropriate” as well as technical assistance and capacity building. This pillar outlines several targeted areas, including inclusivity, trade assistance, capacity building, competition policy, trade facilitation, labor, the environment, the digital economy, agriculture, and good regulatory practices.
• Supply chains. The countries will work to identify critical sectors for work to boost resiliency and regional investment; establish a mechanism to share information and respond to supply chain crises; share information and facilitate investment in supply chain logistics and transportation; enhance the role of skilled workers in supply chain resilience; and improve supply chain transparency and boost environmental, social, and corporate governance.
• Clean economy. The countries will advance cooperation on research, development, commercialization, deployment, and access to clean energy and climate technologies, specifically focusing on boosting energy security. They also have pledged to address greenhouse gases through reducing emissions, promote capture technologies, share sustainable solutions for land, water and ocean use, and incentivize a clean economy transition.
• Fair economy. This pillar is heavily focused on two core areas: strengthening anticorruption efforts in line with specific multilateral conventions and standards through legal, regulatory and cooperative initiatives and boosting transparency and information exchange on regional and global tax issues.