Executive Order Establishes New Trade Enforcement Unit

The proposed agency in President Obama’s State of the Union address that launched a thousand Twitter jokes is now reality.

The White House just released Obama’s executive order that today established the Interagency Trade Enforcement Center.

The new unit’s policy is stated thus:

Robust monitoring and enforcement of U.S. rights under international trade agreements, and enforcement of domestic trade laws, are crucial to expanding exports and ensuring U.S. workers, businesses, ranchers, and farmers are able to compete on a level playing field with foreign trade partners. To strengthen our capacity to monitor and enforce U.S. trade rights and domestic trade laws, and thereby enhance market access for U.S. exporters, executive departments and agencies (agencies) must coordinate and augment their efforts to identify and reduce or eliminate foreign trade barriers and unfair foreign trade practices to ensure that U.S. workers, businesses, ranchers, and farmers receive the maximum benefit from our international trade agreements and under domestic trade laws.

The center is placed within the Office of the United States Trade Representative and will coordinate its enforcement activities with the departments of State, Treasury, Justice, Agriculture, Commerce, Homeland Security and the Director of National Intelligence.

The new unit will “serve as the primary forum within the Federal Government for USTR and other agencies to coordinate enforcement of U.S. trade rights under international trade agreements and enforcement of domestic trade laws” and will “conduct outreach to U.S. workers, businesses, and other interested persons to foster greater participation in the identification and reduction or elimination of foreign trade barriers and unfair foreign trade practices.”