As a policy issue trade can be challenging, because we want to make sure agreements we make abroad that lead to economic growth domestically also take into account jobs and workers displaced by those agreements. But when done right, trade does raise all boats, and President Obama’s U.S. Trade Representative, Ron Kirk, clearly gets that.

Kirk spoke recently at the Global Innovation Forum at Howard University. Calling innovation and creativity “the cornerstone of our future economic development,” he said the President’s Trade Policy Agenda recognizes “one key to our economic success is our ability to trade that innovation and creativity — through our products, our services, our intellectual property — in a rules-based system around the world.”

Kirk called us a knowledge economy, the Paul Romer insight I noted in commenting on in the latest 2009 International Property Rights Index. That report, and this paper, echo Kirk’s statement above about future economic deveopment, which he applied not just to the U.S. but emerging economies as well.

Here’s his take on the importance of ensuring robust IP rights enforcement in trade:

American intellectual property, goods, and services can hit the global marketplace sometimes with just a keystroke. If we’re not vigilant, they can vanish after that.

The reality of today’s economy is that there are those who seek their own profit at the expense of American ingenuity, through counterfeiting and piracy of IP.

So we must work to make sure that when American goods, services, and intellectual property arrive in world markets, they benefit from basic safeguards similar to those they enjoy at home. The President and I are confident that given a level playing field, America’s businesses and workers can successfully compete with those anywhere in the world.

Well said.

The USTR has a great track record in recognizing the importance of international intellectual property rights enforcement. They recognize how important that enforcement is to our culture and economy.

USTR is also working with other nations supportive of creators in determining how to more efficiently coordinate on enforcing existing IP obligations. I’ll speak more on that in my next post.

Share this:

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 16th, 2009 at 2:00 pm by Patrick Ross and is filed under Obama, counterfeit, international, piracy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.