USCIB joined with the Coalition for Integrity, the International Corporate Accountability Roundtable and the AFL-CIO in a June 13 letter to President Donald Trump urging the administration to push aggressively for other leading global trading nations to match U.S. efforts against international bribery and corruption. Specifically, the group urged the administration to press all of the 41 signatory countries to the OECD’s Anti-bribery Convention to take concrete steps to strengthen their implementation and enforcement of their foreign bribery laws.
In the context of the G20, USCIB joined in urging the administration to press for all G20 countries to become signatories and full partners in that OECD convention by the end of 2018. Currently four G20 members (China, India, Indonesia and Saudi Arabia) have not signed the OECD Anti-bribery Convention.
The G20 Summit meeting will be held July 7-9 in Hamburg, Germany.
USCIB’s Customs and Trade Facilitation Committee Chair and Vice President of Government and Trade Relations at Hanesbrands Jerry Cook recently posted commentary on the Adam Smith Project blog (formerly known as the American Shipper column).
With the Trump administration seeking to reorient U.S. trade policy toward bilateral agreements, bilateral trade deficits have been put forward as a marker of the health — or lack thereof — of U.S. commercial relations with a given country. USCIB has taken up this issue in a recent 
USCIB’s Director for Customs and Trade Facilitation Megan M. Giblin spoke at the spring meeting of the American Bar Association Section of International Law event last Friday, April 28. The event featured more than 60 panels highlighting different aspects of the theme of the conference – “New Leaders, New Laws: 2017 and Beyond.” Giblin spoke on a panel titled “U.S. Measures to Combat Human Trafficking; Responses in the Corporate World,” along with Alice Kipel of U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), Ken Kennedy of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Eric Gottwald of the International Human Rights Forum. The panel was tied to the topic of forced labor and the provisions of the Trade Facilitation and Trade Enforcement Act (TFTFA) of 2016, which repealed the “consumptive demand” clause in 19 U.S.C. §1307. The focus was on what happens at the ICE and CBP levels on the issue of forced labor, the work industry is carrying out as members are getting caught up in the import prohibition tied to the issuance of Withhold Release Orders (WROs) by the CBP Commissioner, as well as the matter of submissions made by, for example, Civil Society Organizations seeking action under 19 U.S.C. §1307.
USCIB’s “International Business” 
During the months of February and March, 2017, USCIB Staff hosted a conference with BIAC/OECD on Digital Transformation, discussed Brexit with Alexander Lau of the UK government and Chris Southworth of ICC UK, arranged a member briefing with Doug Frantz, Deputy Secretary-General of the OECD, and Bernhard Welschke, Secretary General of Business at OECD (BIAC), presented at the OECD Investment Committee meetings in Paris, participated in the ICC Trade Committee meetings in London, provided comments on NTIA’s Internet of Things Green Paper, addressed customs issues at the APEC SOM 1 meetings in Vietnam, shared member views at the OECD Meetings on VAT in Paris, and much more. Below are summaries of these and other highlights from the activities of USCIB in Washington, D.C. over the last two months. If you have any questions or comments, or want more information on a specific topic, please contact any of the staff members listed at the end of this brief.