Congressional Dems want more cash for U.S. trade office

The Hill is reporting that a group of Congressional Democrats wants the U.S. Trade Representative’s office (USTR) to get millions in new funding. What accounts for the largesse? A new Democratic push for negotiating new free trade agreements? Not quite. The Congressional group wants the funding to support USTR’s efforts to monitor Chinese compliance with ...

By , a professor at Indiana University’s Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies.

The Hill is reporting that a group of Congressional Democrats wants the U.S. Trade Representative's office (USTR) to get millions in new funding. What accounts for the largesse? A new Democratic push for negotiating new free trade agreements? Not quite. The Congressional group wants the funding to support USTR's efforts to monitor Chinese compliance with World Trade Organization rules:

The Hill is reporting that a group of Congressional Democrats wants the U.S. Trade Representative’s office (USTR) to get millions in new funding. What accounts for the largesse? A new Democratic push for negotiating new free trade agreements? Not quite. The Congressional group wants the funding to support USTR’s efforts to monitor Chinese compliance with World Trade Organization rules:

The 37 lawmakers requested an additional $6.6 million, including $3.4 million requested by the Obama administration along with another $3.2 million for USTR to "expand its efforts to monitor and investigate China’s industrial policies, in order to enforce World Trade Organization (WTO) rules and create a more level playing field for American workers and businesses," they said in a letter obtained by The Hill

Reps. Jim McDermott (D-Wash.), ranking member on the House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Trade, Joseph Crowley (D-N.Y.) and Mike Michaud (D-Maine) are leading the effort to provide the trade office with more funding [snip]

U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk recently said his office is "woefully short" on resources to investigate issues and had "exhausted its entire annual translation budget in three months on a single China case," the letter said. 

David Bosco is a professor at Indiana University’s Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies. He is the author of The Poseidon Project: The Struggle to Govern the World’s Oceans. Twitter: @multilateralist

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