Ensuring Compliance with Trade Agreements

USTR monitors and enforces trade agreements, with the help of the Department of Commerce and other agencies, to ensure that foreign partners are complying with negotiated commitments and that the United States' expected trade gains are not thwarted by obstacles to U.S. exports and investment. However, USTR faces several challenges in carrying out this part of its mission:

• USTR has limited resources with which to manage a growing monitoring and enforcement workload, created by new WTO members and new trade agreements.
  Highlights of GAO-08-59 (PDF), Highlights of GAO-05-537 (PDF)
• USTR's monitoring reports need improvement, particularly those related to China's trade compliance, in which it is difficult to discern priorities and progress.
  Highlights of GAO-08-405 (PDF)
• USTR and other trade agencies have faced substantive and practical challenges in enforcing U.S. trade rights under trade agreements, including through U.S. trade laws. USTR frequently defends the status of U.S. trade agreement compliance against challenges brought by foreign nations, but it has generally been more successful challenging other countries' compliance than defending U.S. compliance. This has caused the United States to re-examine or withdraw certain measures found to be inconsistent with WTO obligations.
• Through the annual Special 301 report process, USTR identifies foreign countries that deny adequate and effective protection of intellectual property (IP) rights or fair and equitable market access related to IP protection. As part of the Special 301 process, U.S. posts overseas are responsible for submitting to USTR their perspectives on the key IP issues in their host countries. USTR identifies IP priorities for these countries and then provides this information to U.S. posts. However, we found posts did not utilize their interagency efforts, the Special 301 report, or USTR’s IP priorities as a foundation for establishing specific objectives to guide their IP activities.
  Highlights of GAO-09-863 (PDF)
• Monitoring and engagement on outstanding U.S. commercial concerns with free trade agreement (FTA) partners appears active, but evaluation of trade results is infrequent and ad hoc. Further, USTR and other agencies provided ad hoc or minimal oversight, lacking key elements critical to long-term success, of labor and environmental provisions in the four agreements we reviewed. These agencies failed to proactively monitor commitments and utilize cooperation mechanisms related to the labor provisions of the agreements, thereby missing labor problems and overlooking opportunities to pursue labor issues of common interest. With respect to environmental provisions, the lack of systematic U.S. monitoring of and reliable funding for cooperative activities limited progress in strengthening partners’ capacity for environmental protection.
  Highlights of GAO-09-439 (PDF)

^ Back to topWhat Needs to Be Done

To improve U.S. monitoring and enforcement of trade agreements related to China, USTR should

• systematically identify and report (in its annual compliance reports to Congress) the number, type, and disposition of trade issues it is pursuing with China; and
• update the compliance plans that were contained in a 2006 top-to-bottom review of U.S.-China trade relations and take steps to assess its implementation of those plans.
  Highlights of GAO-08-405 (PDF)

To facilitate oversight and better ensure progress in achieving U.S. objectives related to labor and the environment in U.S. free trade agreements, USTR, in cooperation with the Departments of State and Labor, should

• prepare updated plans to implement, enforce, monitor, and report on compliance with and progress under the agreements’ labor and environmental provisions;
• ensure that these plans reflect ongoing trade developments; and
• provide the plans to Congress and summarize them in USTR’s annual trade agreements report.
  Highlights of GAO-09-439 (PDF)

USTR is taking steps to implement these FTA recommendations and to work with State and Labor to help satisfy the separate recommendations made to those agencies. GAO will continue to monitor these improvements to ensure they are sustained.

^ Back to topKey Reports

U.S.-China Trade

International Trade

International Trade

U.S.-China Trade

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