Opinion Editorials, May 2009

IRmep Legal Challenge to AIPAC Trade Deal cites Heavy Loss of American Jobs and Trade Secrets
 
WASHINGTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

May 2, 2009

A legal filing to the United States Trade Representative (USTR) calls for suspension of the US-Israel Free Trade Area.
 
The Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy (IRmep) "Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974" filing includes previously unreleased internal International Trade Commission (ITC) files recently obtained under the Freedom of Information Act and testimony from US counterintelligence agencies and concerned American industries.
 
A key legal exhibit reveals the ITC's early response to formal complaints about intellectual property losses lodged by the US Bromine Alliance. ITC confirmed that extremely sensitive company information solicited under "business confidential" provisions was included in a classified internal US government trade negotiation report. The FBI investigated how this report was subsequently obtained by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). The Israeli government also obtained the classified report according to the ITC. ITC further confirmed that leaked data to AIPAC included "specific business confidential numbers extracted from the Alliance's...production cost, raw material cost, depreciation or manufacturing cost, by product cost, and shipping cost for the compound TBBPA and...the length of time that sales of domestic TBBPA could be supplied from inventory."
 
The IRmep's legal challenge, representing concerned industries and associations from 37 states committed to stamping out Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) violations quantifies how ongoing trade secrets theft from US military, pharmaceutical, chemical and agricultural industries directly translate into American jobs losses.

Input-output table exhibits derived from US Census Bureau data reveal that American jobs losses caused by the trade pact widened from 50,000 in 1999 to 126,000 in 2008.

A comparative analysis against more beneficial bilateral trade agreements shows that canceling the US-Israel FTA would produce an immediate net economic benefit to the United States while fortifying rules based global trade and intellectual property rights.
 
Downloadable copies of the full 92 page USTR draft filing are available online at:
http://www.IRmep.org/Sec301full.pdf
 
A summary may be found at: http://irmep.org/Sec301summary.pdf
 
The Washington, DC based IRmep is an independent nonprofit that studies US policy formulation toward the Middle East.

IRmep's Center for Policy & Law Enforcement examines how balanced and vigorous law enforcement can improve trade, economic development and America's international standing.