United States that the EU GI regulation is inconsistent with the EU's obligations under the TRIPS Agreement and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade 1994. On March 31, 2006, the EU published a revised GI Regulation that is intended to comply with the DSB recommendations and rulings. There remain some concerns, however, with respect to this revised GI Regulation, which the United States has asked the EU to address. The United States intends to continue monitoring this situation. The United States is also working intensively bilaterally and in multilateral fora to advance U.S. market access interests, and to ensure that the trade initiatives of other countries, including with respect to GIs, do not undercut market access for U.S. companies.
The Interagency Trade Enforcement Center
In his State of the Union address on January 24, 2012, President Obama announced the creation of the Interagency Trade Enforcement Center (ITEC) to take a whole-of-government approach to monitoring and enforcing Americans' trade rights around the world. On February 28, 2012, the President issued an Executive Order that established ITEC. ITEC's role in coordinating international and domestic trade enforcement helps to ensure that America's trading partners abide by their obligations, including by maintaining open markets on a non-discriminatory basis, and by following rules-based procedures in a transparent way. ITEC leverages and mobilizes the Federal Government's resources and expertise to address unfair foreign trade practices and barriers, including those adversely affecting IPR. In particular, ITEC uses expertise from across the Federal Government to assist in asserting U.S. trade rights implicated by various international trade agreements.
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