i3 - March/April 2016 - 34

Policy

BY U.S. TRADE REPRESENTATIVE MICHAEL FROMAN

T EC H P O L I CY
CES AND THE TPP:
AMERICAN INNOVATION
ON DISPLAY

n January I had the chance
to visit CES, the annual
convention hosted by the
Consumer Technology
Association showcasing some
of the most impressive new
innovations from thousands of
businesses of all sizes.
CES 2016 was an important
place to cover the many economic gains the Trans-Pacific
Partnership (TPP) will make for
American technology companies, whether it's quickly eliminating tariffs on their Madein-America exports, fighting
against counterfeit products, or
keeping the Internet free and
open and ensuring the free flow
of data between borders.
I hosted a roundtable with
small business owners from
all over the country, like Balanced Audio of Wilmington,
Delaware, which exports audio
equipment to six TPP partner
countries, and Kimber Kable
from Ogden, UT, a company
that manufactures and exports
world-class insulated cables.
Together we talked about
how the 98 percent of American exporters that are small
businesses often face very steep
obstacles when they try to sell
American-made goods to other
countries, and how the TPP is
designed to give them a helping hand in exporting to the
Asia-Pacific region so that they
can grow and hire more here
at home.
Afterward I visited with

MARCH/APRIL 2016

THE TPP

MOVING FORWARD

Texas Instruments Senior Vice
President Greg Delagi, who
gave me a tour of the various
innovations on display at the
Texas Instruments booth and
led me to the "EvoCar," which
features an advanced heads-up
display for its driver.
Nearby, I got to meet Matias
Brecher, the founder of Toast,
a Portland, OR-based small
business that handcrafts custom
carved wooden computer,
tablet and mobile phone cases
and exports them all over the
world. In fact, 40 percent of
their sales are thanks to exports.
Later in the day, Qualcomm's President Derek
Aberle showed me an "invisible
museum" that could be viewed
with tablets and pointed out
the many Qualcomm products
that, hidden from plain sight,
go into making American cities
operate in a smarter, cleaner,

more efficient way.
And in between I saw countless other displays of inspiring
and groundbreaking ingenuity that, taken together, help
show why the TPP is so vital
to President Obama's efforts to
strengthen the United States
economy and support highpaying jobs across the country:
because we want customers in
the Asia-Pacific buying what
we invent and export. We are
the most innovative country
in the world, and when the
playing field is level-when
the rules are fair-there is no
doubt that American workers, inventors, businesses and
entrepreneurs can compete
and win in the global economy.
That's what the TPP is all
about, and that's why the
Obama Administration is
working so hard to move the
agreement forward.

The trade deal, known
as the Trans-Pacific
Partnership (TPP),
eliminates thousands
of foreign tariffs on
U.S. exports, potentially making it easier
for American companies to sell their goods
abroad. The TPP would
help the private sector by easing customs
procedures and rolling
back foreign-imposed
requirements. It has
broad-based support
from most business
groups, and helps to
establish rules that will
become enforceable
upon entry into force.
But the multilateral
deal also has opposition from labor organizations that say the
TPP could hurt wages
and others who say the
deal doesn't help the
U.S. enough. It remains
to be seen if there is
enough support in
Congress to ratify the
deal.

I T I S I N N O VAT I O N

i3 - March/April 2016

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