Growth, Jobs and Open Markets Archives

USCIB Responds to Announcement of New US Steel, Aluminum Tariffs

Published on March 2, 2018

Washington, D.C., March 2, 2018 – The United States Council for International Business (USCIB), which represents America’s most successful global companies, issued the following statement on the Trump administration’s announced plans to impose new duties of 25 percent and 10 percent, respectively, on imports of foreign steel and aluminum:

“USCIB strongly supports a more competitive America, which enjoys economic growth and jobs by increasing exports, opening global markets and securing a level playing field for our goods and services. We are disappointed with the administration’s decision. History clearly teaches that fomenting trade wars with our commercial partners is likely to backfire on the United States, harming American businesses, workers, farmers and consumers in the process.

“The imposition of tariffs on steel and aluminum will lead to higher prices for U.S.-made products, reducing the competitiveness of our exports, and will probably eliminate more jobs than it saves. In addition, it is likely to create strong disincentives for foreign investment in the United States, and to spur higher inflation. 

“Most importantly, these protectionist tariffs are likely to cause a chain reaction of retaliatory measures by our trading partners, as many of them have already indicated. Other nations are likely to target our most competitive exports and otherwise disadvantage American companies.

“We hope that these measures will be short-lived. We urge the Trump administration and America’s trading partners to work cooperatively and swiftly to address the serious issues associated with steel and aluminum dumping, and to open up new markets for our exports and new opportunities for American workers, farmers and consumers to prosper in the wider world.”

About USCIB:

USCIB promotes open markets, competitiveness and innovation, sustainable development and corporate responsibility, supported by international engagement and regulatory coherence. Its members include U.S.-based global companies and professional services firms from every sector of our economy, with operations in every region of the world, generating $5 trillion in annual revenues and employing over 11 million people worldwide. As the U.S. affiliate of several leading international business organizations, USCIB provides business views to policy makers and regulatory authorities worldwide, and works to facilitate international trade and investment. More information is available at www.uscib.org.

Contact:
Jonathan Huneke, USCIB
jhuneke@uscib.org, +1 212.703.5043

Private Sector Meets with Governments on Digital Security Risk

Published on February 26, 2018

Addressing digital security across business fields, Business at OECD members participated in an OECD Workshop on Digital Security and Resilience in Critical Infrastructures and Essential Services earlier this month in Paris to contribute to the OECD‘s Going Digital Project.

The OECD Going Digital Project was officially launched in Berlin in 2017 and aims to examine how the digital transformation affects policy-making across a large spectrum of policy areas, including competition, consumer policy, digital economy policy (privacy, security, infrastructure, economic impact), science, technology and innovation, industry and entrepreneurship, insurance and private pensions, financial markets, fiscal affairs and taxation and much more. The project will draw on national experiences and policy experimentation occurring across the OECD’s 35 member countries, its accession countries, key partners and many other economies involved in the OECD’s work.

At the meeting earlier this month, which featured USCIB member Chris Boyer (AT&T), Business at OECD members emphasized the importance of a multi-stakeholder approach to cooperation and information exchange between actors – business, government, civil society and the technical community – to ensure effective and appropriate security and privacy protections.

“Importantly, workshop participants underscored the importance of using existing OECD consensus-based and multi-stakeholder developed security and privacy frameworks – the 2015 OECD Digital Risk Management for Economic and Society Prosperity and the 2013 OECD Privacy Framework,” said Barbara Wanner, USCIB Vice President for ICT Policy. “There is no need for OECD member nations – or non-member nations – who are looking to improve their approaches to security and privacy to ‘reinvent the wheel’ because these two products serve as solid building blocks,” Wanner said.

USCIB Partners with Japanese Group Keidanren on NAFTA Letter

Published on February 26, 2018

With the National Governors Association meeting last week and this week and the next round of NAFTA negotiations starting this week, USCIB coordinated with the Japanese business group, Keidanren, on a joint letter to each governor expressing support for keeping and modernizing NAFTA.

“Having worked closely with Keidanren in promoting the importance of foreign direct investment to government leaders in international forums such as G20, OECD and the United Nations, we wanted to leverage our joint voices to highlight the importance of NAFTA in driving the growth of foreign direct investment into the United States,” said Rob Mulligan, USCIB senior vice president for policy. “The investment by Japanese companies into the U.S. serves as an example of this growth and each letter identifies the number of jobs in the particular state that are accounted for by Japanese-owned firms.”

The letters stress the position USCIB has urged from the beginning that the negotiations “do no harm” to the existing NAFTA framework and then reinforces key messages related to ISDS, rules of origin, government procurement, and any sunset provision.

“We hope this letter will encourage the governors to actively engage the Administration on achieving a modernized NAFTA that we can all support,” added Mulligan.

Hampl Leads Group for NAFTA Lobby Day to Voice Concerns

Published on February 20, 2018

With the next NAFTA negotiating round now set for Mexico City later this month, USCIB Director for Investment, Trade and Financial Services Eva Hampl joined more than 100 representatives from the business and agriculture community last Wednesday for a second NAFTA House Lobby Day. The Lobby Day gave business representatives the opportunity to talk about business concerns and perspectives regarding the ongoing negotiations to modernize NAFTA and to increase support on the leadup to the next round of negotiations, scheduled for February 26 to March 6.

Hampl led one of the groups on the Hill, which included representatives from other associations and companies from the business and agriculture community. “The diversity of sectors represented was extremely helpful in getting our message across,” said Hampl. “Our group alone met with 9 offices throughout the day, receiving generally positive feedback about supporting our issues and concerns, including potential interest in signing on to a House NAFTA letter.”

Hampl will be traveling to Mexico for part of the next round at the end of February.

Ericsson’s Kallay to Chair USCIB Competition Committee

Published on February 15, 2018
Dina Kallay

New York, N.Y, February 15, 2018 – A telecommunications industry executive has been tapped to spearhead a top U.S. business group’s work on global antitrust policy. The United States Council for International Business (USCIB) has announced that Dina Kallay, head of antitrust (IPR, Americas & Asia-Pacific) at Ericsson, a leading global supplier of telecommunications equipment and services, will chair its Competition Committee.

USCIB, whose member include hundreds of America’s most competitive global companies, represents private-sector views to governments and policy makers worldwide. It does so via its affiliations with global business groups to focus especially on the work of the International Competition Network (ICN) and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

“We are delighted that Dina Kallay will lend her expertise and industry leadership to our work on global competition and antitrust policy,” said USCIB President and CEO Peter M. Robinson. “As the U.S. continues to look to the ICN and OECD to foster international convergence and cooperation on competition law, including the coordination of cartel enforcement, we intend to serve as an even stronger voice for business in these forums.”

Prior to joining Ericsson in 2013, Kallay served as counsel at the U.S. Federal Trade Commission’s Office of International Affairs, where she focused on Asian and multilateral competition matters as well as on worldwide antitrust intellectual property matters. She previously worked at the European Commission’s antitrust agency (DG COMP), and practiced antitrust and intellectual property law at a number of law firms, most recently at Howrey LLP. Kallay is vice chair of the American Bar Association’s Section of Antitrust Law I.P. Committee and a non-governmental advisor to the International Competition Network. She also serves as an adjunct professor at Georgetown Law School.

The USCIB Competition Committee promotes international legal policies that favor an open and competitive environment for U.S. business. The committee monitors global competition developments and contributes industry’s perspective through USCIB’s global network.

About USCIB:

USCIB promotes open markets, competitiveness and innovation, sustainable development and corporate responsibility, supported by international engagement and regulatory coherence.  Its members include U.S.-based global companies and professional services firms from every sector of our economy, with operations in every region of the world.  With a unique global network encompassing the International Chamber of Commerce, the International Organization of Employers and Business at OECD, USCIB provides business views to policy makers and regulatory authorities worldwide, and works to facilitate international trade and investment. More information is available at www.uscib.org.

Contact:
Jonathan Huneke, USCIB
+1 917 420 0039, jhuneke@uscib.org

USCIB attends Business “Talanoa Dialogue” to Advance Climate Policy Implementation

Published on February 6, 2018
Tomasz Chruszczow, Climate Champion, Poland makes remarks

The International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) convened a business workshop under the UNFCCC Talanoa Dialogue process last week. The day-long meeting at ICC Headquarters in Paris brought business leaders together with influential government representatives leading the UNFCCC negotiations to discuss where business can contribute and strengthen implementation of national and international climate policy.

The Talanoa Dialogue, previously referred to as the Facilitative Dialogue, aims to overview collaborative action by governments, business and others to move the global climate agenda. A year-long process of discussions, consultations, events and expert inputs that will culminate at the 24th Conference of Parties in Poland, the Talanoa Dialogue is the first time business and other stakeholder inputs are to be mainstreamed into the UNFCCC deliberations.  ICC serves as the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Focal Point for business and industry, and has represented global business in the UN climate deliberations since 1993.

Tomasz Chruszczow,  climate champion, Poland, opened the meeting with a plea for business involvement, stating, “Business creates jobs, makes investment decisions. We need business to solve the challenges ahead in the transition towards a low-carbon economy.”  Phil Kucharski, ICC’s chief operating officer announced that ICC would make an organization-wide commitment to both the Paris Agreement and to inform the Talanoa Dialogue.

The Talanoa Dialogue is a process led by Fiji to invite and gather information, examples and discussion on 3 questions relating to the UNFCCC, Paris Agreement and the need for additional greenhouse gas reductions, resilience, funding and technology cooperation:

-Where are We?

-Where are We Going?

-How Do we Get There?

“While the Talanoa questions appear very basic, business will re-frame them to be relevant to private sector investment and implementation, and then bring forward value-added information and recommendations in response,” stated Norine Kennedy, who leads USCIB’s work on climate change, energy and the environment. Other USCIB members attending this workshop included Nick Campbell, Arkema and Justin Perrettson, Novozymes.

The discussion tackled concerns with assertions made by anti-business interests about “conflict of interest” as a justification to ban certain business sectors from observing the UNFCCC deliberations. Elina Bardram, head of Unit for International Climate Negotiations, European Commission stated that since the challenges involved in catalyzing climate action are daunting “for technical negotiators alone to tackle, so we need real world expertise – from business & other non-parties – included in the process.”

Other speakers included Deo Saran, Fiji’s ambassador to Belgium and permanent representative to the European Union and Brigitte Collet, France’s ambassador for Climate Change Negotiations, Renewable Energy & Climate Risk Prevention.

USCIB recently submitted recommendations to the UNFCCC on the importance of substantive business involvement in the UNFCCC going forward. USCIB will work closely with ICC in future Talanoa Dialogue meetings, and will consult its members as it prepares USCIB contributions to the Talanoa Dialogue scoping exercise en route to the next UNFCCC Conference of Parties in Katowice, Poland in December.

Politico Highlights Business at OECD Work on Colombia Accession

Published on February 5, 2018

In light of Secretary Tillerson’s upcoming trip to South America, Politico published an article highlighting unresolved concerns surrounding Colombia’s accession to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), including on intellectual property and transparency.

USCIB has long been advocating on these issues, particularly through Business at OECD and most recently through a document, which Politico references.

“This important advocacy document, which contains pre-accession recommendations for issues Colombia should address before acceding to the OECD, to be included in the OECD Trade Committee’s Formal Opinion, was developed by BIAC, with significant USCIB input on US industry priority issues,” noted Eva Hampl, USCIB director of investment, trade and financial services.

USCIB Spells Out Priorities for U.S. Trade Policy

Published on January 24, 2018

Presses for enforcement, open markets and more competitive workforce

Washington, D.C., January 24, 2018 – The United States Council for International Business (USCIB), which advises the U.S. government on trade and commercial policy and represents American companies in global business and intergovernmental forums, today laid out its priorities for U.S. trade policy. In its 2018 Trade and Investment Agenda, the group said it is committed to a global rules-based trade and investment system, will support enforcement of existing U.S. trade pacts, and will push for new market-opening agreements for U.S. exports and investment.

“Opening global markets for American goods, services and investment is critical for our future prosperity,” said USCIB President and CEO Peter M. Robinson. “Doing so requires strong enforcement of existing agreements, as well as their renegotiation where our commercial interests dictate. But it also demands a robust, ‘all-of-the-above’ approach, encompassing vigorous leadership by the United States in international negotiations to develop effective rules and open up new areas for liberalization of cross-border trade and investment.”

Robinson said that, as the U.S. works to open overseas markets, it needs policies and programs to support U.S. workers and improve workforce competitiveness. “While trade is dwarfed by technological and other factors in driving changes in jobs and skills, we need to make sure that are doing everything we can to stay ahead of the inevitable dislocations and build a workforce for the 21st century,” he said.

USCIB’s 2018 Trade and Investment Agenda identifies numerous priorities for American trade policy. Among its top priorities, USCIB pledged to:

  • work for effective enforcement of existing agreements, as well as to advance negotiations and agreements that improve market access for U.S. companies within a dynamic, rules-based system
  • stress the importance of U.S. engagement and leadership in creating and enforcing rules for international trade and investment, including protection of U.S. investments abroad
  • urge the Trump administration not to introduce new proposals in NAFTA that will weaken existing provisions, or negate the benefits that U.S. companies derive from the U.S. being part of NAFTA
  • urge the administration to initiate negotiations with countries in the Asia-Pacific region to ensure that American goods and services companies have open and fair access to their markets
  • work with the administration to develop a coherent strategy for pressing China to further open its markets to U.S. companies, and eliminate the proliferating Chinese policies aimed at hindering access, in a framework that maintains stability in the relationship
  • leverage USCIB’s unique global business network to build international consensus on trade and investment policy.

Download the full USCIB 2018 Trade and Investment Agenda here.

About USCIB:
USCIB promotes open markets, competitiveness and innovation, sustainable development and corporate responsibility, supported by international engagement and regulatory coherence. Its members include U.S.-based global companies and professional services firms from every sector of our economy, with operations in every region of the world, generating $5 trillion in annual revenues and employing over 11 million people worldwide. As the U.S. affiliate of the International Chamber of Commerce, the International Organization of Employers and Business at OECD, USCIB provides business views to policy makers and regulatory authorities worldwide, and works to facilitate international trade and investment. More information is available at www.uscib.org.

Contact:
Jonathan Huneke, USCIB
jhuneke@uscib.org, +1 212.703.5043

BIAC Issues Statement on Future OECD Accessions

Published on January 23, 2018

As more countries in Europe and Latin America apply for membership with the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the Business at OECD (BIAC) Executive Board issued a statement this week noting, in part, that a commitment to open markets should guide any decision to the opening of accession negotiations.

The letter emphasizes: “the accession process should encourage countries to improve their business environment and engage in the necessary reforms,” noting that “more than ever, business depends on an enabling environment to support trade and investment in global markets.”

The OECD has yet to respond to the applicant countries (Argentina, Brazil, Peru, Bulgaria, Croatia, and Romania) as OECD enlargement on this scale raises important questions on the mission and governance of the organization. For countries that will receive a positive response, acceding to the OECD entails a multi-year review process where all 25 major OECD committees evaluate, in confidential sessions, the policies of the candidate country and the improvements it must make to fully apply the body of OECD instruments and standards.

USCIB Director for Investment, Trade and Financial Services Eva Hampl will be providing input on behalf of U.S. business into this process. “USCIB members have significant business interests in many of these markets,” said Hampl. “These future accession processes provide an opportunity to ensure a high standards and a level playing field for our companies.”

USCIB Gears Up for NAFTA Talks in Montreal This Week

Published on January 23, 2018

The sixth round of NAFTA negotiations is taking place in Montreal, Canada this week with a concluding Ministerial scheduled for Monday, January 29. USCIB Director for Investment, Trade and Financial Services Eva Hampl will be traveling to Montreal tomorrow for meetings with negotiators and key officials. This round presents a great opportunity to push forward on many chapters vital to U.S. business, and make progress in the discussions surrounding the more controversial provisions that have been tabled.

As a lead up to the talks in Montreal, Hampl participated in the Senate Lobby Day on the Hill last week, speaking with a range of Republican and Democratic offices. Throughout the day, about 150 members of the NAFTA Coalition met with as many Senate offices as possible, raising business issues of concern.

“We emphasized the outstanding issues regarding the problematic proposals of a sunset clause, investor-state dispute settlement, auto rules of origin, and government procurement,” said Hampl. “We also made the point that there are many chapters that are making progress, including customs and digital trade, which are vital for business and should get closed out as soon as possible.”