The promises of the global marketplace are increasingly difficult to realize with an ever-growing number of international trade and investment agreements and a dizzying array of potentially trade-distorting laws, regulations, and policies adopted around the world. Arent Fox’s Global Trade Policy Practice presents a seamless team of international trade attorneys, government relations professionals, and regulatory thought leaders to advance our clients’ international trade interests. Our Global Trade Policy Team assists clients in navigating their way through a complex matrix of rules and agreements, developing strategies to create and take advantage of opportunities presented by these legal regimes, and implementing those strategies to secure and expand markets. Arent Fox’s Global Trade Policy Team assists clients in achieving their international trade goals using various tools and techniques, including:
- Legislative and Administrative Advocacy
- Trade Negotiations
- Trade Compliance, Market Access and Preference Programs
- International Dispute Resolution
Legislative and Administrative Advocacy
Arent Fox’s Global Trade Policy Team assists governments, industry coalitions and large and small companies in nearly every sector — manufacturing, services, technology, and financial — achieve their trade objectives by advocating on their behalf with the right people. With extensive experience in senior positions on Capitol Hill and in administrative agencies responsible for international trade, Arent Fox’s Global Trade Policy Team brings first-hand knowledge, judgment, and experience to our clients’ trade policy needs. Our legislative and administrative advocacy team includes two former US senators, numerous former staffers in both the Senate and House, a member of the board of directors of the US Export-Import Bank, and former attorneys at the Departments of Commerce, Treasury, and Agriculture, the US International Trade Commission (ITC), EPA, and FDA.
Our legislative and administrative advocacy activities include:
- Shaping international trade legislation and regulations and government policy through direct lobbying and coordination with members of Congress, administration officials, and key staff members
- Monitoring, analyzing, and reporting on trade legislation and relevant regulatory developments
- Drafting trade legislation, position papers, agency comments, and testimony
Our recent legislative and administrative advocacy involved import duty suspensions, GSP and preference program legislation, port security, biotechnology, export controls, anti-counterfeiting measures, and trade remedies.
International Trade Negotiations
Whether as US government officials or in private practice on behalf of governments or private-sector interests, members of our Global Trade Policy Team have experience negotiating the very agreements that regulate today’s global marketplace, including the World Trade Organization agreements (including antidumping, safeguards, and countervailing measures agreements), NAFTA, Biosafety Protocol, and numerous international intellectual property agreements. With this first-hand negotiating experience, the Arent Fox Global Trade Policy Team assists our clients in identifying opportunities in current trade negotiations to gain an advantage in the global marketplace.
Trade Compliance, Market Access, and Preference Programs
Arent Fox’s Global Trade Policy Team assists clients in navigating the complicated web of international trade regulation in order to maximize competitive opportunities in the global marketplace. Our team advises foreign governments on acceding to, or implementing obligations under various international trade agreements, and develops and executes strategies for industry coalitions and companies to secure and expand their markets. Our team recently has advised several foreign governments on implementing their obligations under international intellectual property rights agreements and other foreign governments on implementing their obligations under the WTO Antidumping, Safeguards, and Subsidies and Countervailing Measures Agreements. In addition, our Global Trade Policy Team has assisted companies in matters involving GSP and other trade preference programs, international regulation of biotechnology, anti-counterfeiting efforts, and Section 301 proceedings conducted by the Office of the US Trade Representative (e.g., China Intellectual Property, Steel, Beef Hormones, and Bananas), among other matters. Our attorneys advise clients of the WTO and NAFTA consistency of laws, regulations, and policies adopted by countries around the world, as well as ways to improve market access in order to compete in the global marketplace.
International Trade and Investment Disputes
When strategic, diplomatic and political tools do not succeed in advancing our clients’ trade interests, our Global Trade Policy Team assists clients in evaluating the merits of possible dispute settlement proceedings. Should this avenue be appropriate, our team has the experience to secure our clients’ trade interests through international dispute settlement proceedings. Our experience includes representing the US government in dispute settlement proceedings as former government attorneys, and representing foreign governments, industry coalitions, and individual companies in international disputes arising under the WTO, NAFTA and other international trade and investment agreements. Such disputes have involved claims related to export subsidies, agricultural subsidies, trade remedies such as antidumping, safeguards, subsidies and countervailing duties, gambling, and other matters.
