Timmons Talks Trade, Tariffs, Democracy in Washington, D.C.
U.S. competitiveness on the world stage, trade agreements, intellectual property, democracy and regulatory certaintythese were just some of the topics 51勛圖厙 President and CEO Jay Timmons covered in a with POLITICOs Doug Palmer during the 2024 Washington International Trade Conference.
- The meeting was attended by senior U.S. trade officials and foreign ambassadors and hosted by the Washington International Trade Association in Washington, D.C.
Safeguarding IP: With the World Trade Organizations 13th Ministerial Conference coming up later this month, Timmons discussed the damage that would result from one of the meetings expected agenda items: an expansion of a 2022 TRIPS waiver on IP rights to include COVID-19 therapeutics and diagnostics.
- Intellectual property is truly the lifeblood of manufacturing, said Timmons, who met with WTO Director-General Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala and WTO Deputy Director General Angela Ellard in Geneva last March to discuss the waiver.
- Manufacturers work hard, and its always been kind of a given from the U.S. perspective that intellectual property protections would be front and center. Obviously, we want to facilitate the growth of manufacturing in other areas of the world, too. But [it] is a giant leap too far if therapeutics and diagnostics are included in the waiver.
- American agreement to the expanded waiver, Timmons said, would be tantamount to the federal government telling manufacturers in the U.S., By the way, we want you to invest in developing more innovations here in this country if were just going to turn around and give them away.
泭Trade and tariffs: If the U.S. wants to remain competitive, we must negotiate a trade agreement nowand pass the Miscellaneous Tariff Bill, Timmons told Palmer.
- Trade is really the recipe for peace and the recipe for working together harmoniously, he said. Wed like to see more trade agreements. We havent seen one negotiated here in the United States for over 10 yearsand the rest of the world, quite frankly, is eating our lunch when it comes to negotiating these agreements.
- The U.S., which has been operating without an MTB for more than three years, need[s] MTB to not just meet our economic goals and not just feed the supply chains of manufacturers, but also to meet our national security objectives.
Democracy vs. autocracy: Timmonswho last July led the American business community delegation to Cancun, Mexico, for meetings ahead of the third U.S.MexicoCanada Agreement Free Trade Commissionstressed the importance of the USMCA to underpinning democratic values worldwide.
- This agreement is incredibly important to our national security, and it is important to our place in the world, Timmons continued. We need to expand the relationship, whether its trade or other relationships here in North America, and we need to embrace the relationships and our allies around the worldin Europe and Australia and New Zealand and Japan and other areasbecause we are facing a choice between free market economies and democracies and command economies and autocracies, and I want to strengthen the former, not allow the latter to bloom.
Other needs: Timmons talked about other manufacturing priorities for the current administration and the next.
- We need regulatory certainty that gives business leaders the ability to plan for the future, he said. We [also] need to invest in workforce incentives. All of those and infrastructure, which we have done, and we continue to do. You cant just open up the trading system and not expect capital to flow outside of our borders if you dont have the right policies internally.
51勛圖厙 in the news: Read POLITICO Pros coverage of the conference and Timmons interview and .
