Category: NFTC In the News

U.S.-S. Korea Free Trade Pact Signals Expanding Exports

Posted on by dcadmin

Excerpt: U.S. officials are predicting an increase of $10 billion to $11 billion in exports to South Korea following the endorsement on Friday of a new free trade agreement. The deal now goes to the Senate for ratification. The “KORUS” free trade agreement has been in the works since the Bush administration, and some U.S. industry leaders feared delays would shut the U.S. out of the republic’s $1 trillion economy. South Korea now ranks No. 7 among U.S. trading partners, up a step from its position last year… “We view today’s announcement as a positive signal that the administration is committed to advancing the U.S. trade agenda,” said Chuck Dittrich, National Foreign Trade Council vice president. “It is with the same sense of urgency that we ask the administration to take action on the trade pacts with Colombia and Panama.”

http://www.joc.com/government-regulation/us-skorea-free-trade-pact-signals-expanding-exports

US Business Groups Hope For Korea Trade Deal Approval By Spring

Posted on by dcadmin

Excerpt: The major breakthrough Friday in free-trade talks between the U.S. and South Korea could pave the way for congressional approval by next spring. U.S. business groups are eager to win passage of the agreement during the first half of the year, since a rival trade pact that South Korea signed with Europe is set to go into effect at the beginning of July. “I would hope that it gets approved by spring,” said Chuck Dittrich, vice president for regional trade initiatives at the National Foreign Trade Council, which represents multinational corporations. “What happened today has created some momentum, and I think the business community is firmly behind it to not only sustain but increase that momentum,” said Dittrich.
http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20101203-713029.html?mg=com-wsj 

Cuba Travel Ban Won’t Be Lifted This Year

Posted on by dcadmin

Excerpt: Legislation eliminating a longstanding travel ban to Cuba is dead in this Congress, several senior Democrats said this week. Rep. Bill Delahunt (D-Mass.), a strong backer of lifting the ban, called it “absurd” that Congress would maintain restrictions “predicated on a Cold-War mentality” irrelevant to current events. But with the year drawing to a close — and lawmakers reluctant to tackle yet another thorny topic in a politically polarized environment — the bill won’t come up in the lame duck, he said. “There will be no action,” Delahunt, a senior member of the Foreign Affairs panel, told The Hill… Still, the bill’s supporters are holding out hope that the incoming class of Republicans will feel differently than GOP leaders about the sanctions. Although many conservatives have traditionally supported the ban as a way of pressuring Cuba’s communist dictatorship, the incoming class of Republicans brings with it a libertarian streak that favors individual freedoms above government intrusion, many observers note. That position could place them at odds with GOP incumbents — notably Ros-Lehtinen — who have fought for years to keep U.S. restrictions on Cuba in place. “They might not take kindly to the government telling them where they can and can’t travel, where they can and can’t trade,” Jake Colvin, vice president of global trade at the National Foreign Trade Council, said of the incoming Republicans. “Their perspectives will be much more of a libertarian bent. … The conventional wisdom that Republicans are more hard-lined on Cuba may not play out next year.”

http://thehill.com/homenews/house/131559-congress-wont-lift-cuba-travel-ban-this-year

US Deficit Panel Recommends Lowering Corporate Tax Rates

Posted on by dcadmin

Excerpt: The deficit commission set up by the White House recommended cutting corporate tax rates to a single rate between 23% to 29%, replacing the current band of rates that peak at 35%. In its final report released Wednesday, the commission said that without a significant overhaul of the U.S. corporate tax system, the country’s competitive position globally would suffer. In exchange for lowering the corporate rate, the panel’s report recommended eliminating all other industry-specific subsidies. Doing so would both help pay for the lower corporate rate, and would end the current system where the government in effect picks winners and losers through subsidies, the report said. But in a move that drew praise from multinational businesses, the commission would end the taxation of overseas profits. The move to a territorial system would bring the U.S. more in line with most other countries which generally don’t tax profits earned abroad. Catherine Schultz, vice president of tax policy at the National Foreign Trade Council, another trade group, said it would depend on how such a territorial tax system was structured. For instance, she said, how would overseas oil royalties be treated and what kind of transition rules would be in place to allow firms to use foreign tax credits they have already accumulated? “There are a lot of territorial tax systems in the world, and none of them would work perfectly in the U.S.,” said Schultz. “People are very interested in looking at it, because it is one of the ways we could be most competitive,” she added.

Master and Commander or Salesman-in-chief?

Posted on by dcadmin

Excerpt: Barack Obama: master and commander of the world economy, or merely peripatetic salesman-in-chief? So far, it looks more like the latter. During the president’s Asia tour, he has spent more time touting American exports than battering down trade barriers. Mr Obama says the export deal he proudly announced in India, with the spurious mathematical precision often attached to such estimates, would create 54,000 jobs. The US economy generated nearly three times that number last month alone… Negotiators are thrashing out a side letter reassuring American carmakers that Korea will not allow auto standards to become barriers. But enthusiasm for the deal in the new US Congress is still uncertain. In theory, a House of Representatives controlled by the traditionally liberalisation-friendly Republicans should be more willing drive a deal through. But along with the defeat or retirement of several centrist pro-trade deal Democrats in the recent midterm elections, isolationist and anti-corporate rhetoric from the Tea Party movement has some free traders worried. Officials from the National Foreign Trade Council, a business association, bluntly describe the new Congress as “all over the place” on trade issues.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/ffb9d0c8-ecc5-11df-88eb-00144feab49a.html#axzz14tF9r9bj

Obama’s Asia Trip: The Free Trade Conundrum

Posted on by dcadmin

Excerpt: President Obama’s contention that foreign trade can be a principal engine for creating new jobs and reducing America’s stubbornly high unemployment rate will be put to the test during his two-day visit to South Korea this week… More important still, some political analysts say: The recent midterm elections leave trade as a rare bright spot where Obama and a substantially more Republican Congress may be able to work together. “Trade is an area where both sides can take credit if things move forward,” says Bill Reinsch, president of the National Foreign Trade Council (NFTC) in Washington.

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Foreign-Policy/2010/1110/Obama-s-Asia-trip-the-free-trade-conundrum