News & Insights

Washington, D.C. – The NFTC hailed the emphasis on bipartisanship in a U.S. House Ways and Means Committee hearing today on trade and globalization.

“Today’s hearing on trade and globalization was a welcome development in building renewed bipartisanship on trade policy. We commend Congressmen Rangel and McCrery for their continued focus on developing a bipartisan consensus in support of a forward-looking trade agenda. In that regard, we applaud their efforts to find common ground on how best to address labor issues in the pending FTAs between the United States and Peru, Colombia and Panama,” said NFTC President Bill Reinsch.

In addition to approving pending FTAs with key Latin American trading partners, the NFTC believes timely passage of renewed trade negotiating authority – Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) – is essential to continued U.S. leadership on trade. According to Reinsch, “With recent positive signs that the United States, EU and other WTO members, are committed to achieving a breakthrough on the Doha Round to enable the trade talks to conclude on a timely and ambitious basis, TPA renewal will be critical to the ultimate success of the Round.”

“The United States must continue to lead on trade, including undertaking needed reform of its trade-distorting agriculture policies and enacting TPA in a timely way,” said Reinsch.

Reinsch continued, “If we achieve a breakthrough on the Doha Round in the next couple of months, we should consider approving a targeted and short-term one-year extension of TPA for the Doha Round to ensure it is completed within a year, while allowing a more fulsome and thoughtful debate on our broader trade agenda to proceed on a separate track, if necessary.”

“A successful Doha Round and vibrant multilateral trading system is in our strong national economic interest. The NFTC looks forward to working with Congress and the Administration in support of this critical objective by enacting legislation to renew TPA and a farm bill that is in line with our fundamental trade policy objectives,” concluded Reinsch.

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Advancing Global Commerce for Over 90 Years

The National Foreign Trade Council (www.nftc.org) is a leading business organization advocating an open, rules-based global trading system. Founded in 1914 by a broad-based group of American companies, the NFTC now serves hundreds of member companies through its offices in Washington and New York.