International Trade and Investment

Policy Priorities for 2008

Open Foreign Markets

• Seek new investment and tax treaties to protect investor rights and avoid double taxation in key foreign markets.

• Press governments around the world to avoid divergent regulations and other "in-country barriers" that undermine effective market access and stifle free market competition.

• Through the Center for International Private Enterprise (CIPE) and other vehicles, lay the foundation for market-oriented reform and private enterprise in emerging markets by building institutions that support open societies and a culture of entrepreneurship.

• Advocate for congressional approval of pending free trade agreements with Colombia, Panama, and Korea and work for the effective implementation of all current trade agreements at home and abroad. Also advocate for trade programs beneficial to member companies such as long-term renewal of the Andean Trade Preference Act and improvements to the preferences programs with the Caribbean, Haiti, and sub-Saharan Africa. 

• Work to make the flow of international commerce faster, cheaper, and more reliable through customs and port administration reforms.

• Work to lay the foundation for renewal of the president's Trade Promotion Authority to permit negotiation of additional bilateral free trade agreements as well as multilateral agreements.

• Build support among government and business leaders for Russia's accession to the WTO and for WTO's Doha Development Agenda, the latter of which would open international markets for agricultural products, manufactured goods, and services.

Preserve America's Openness

• Defend America's traditional openness to foreign investment and oppose changes to the interagency Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States that could dilute its focus on national security or deter desirable foreign investment in the United States.

• Advance a modernized export control regime that is efficient, predictable, timely and supports both U.S. competitiveness and national security.

• Oppose federal and state barriers to global sourcing.

• Overturn unilateral sanctions on foreign markets that deny U.S. workers, farmers, and companies business opportunities without achieving the sanctions' stated objectives.