U.S. small businesses currently exporting to the European Union (EU) will have the opportunity to voice their concerns on existing barriers to trade with the EU through a series of roundtables across the country.
The roundtables will be held as part of broader outreach efforts under the recently launched U.S.-EUÂ Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP)
negotiations.The objective of the roundtables is to listen to and better understand small business’ suggestions on how to reduce and eliminate those barriers, and help expand U.S. small business exports to the EU.
The roundtables were commissioned by the Office of the United States Trade Representatives (USTR), which asked the U.S. International Trade Commission (USITC) to conduct a study on the existing trade barriers that disproportionately affect U.S. small business exporters.
Since the President’s National Export Initiative (NEI) goal to double exports by the end of 2014 has focused on increasing the current base of 295,000 small business exporters, an increase in small business participation could result in expanded trade between two regions whose two-way trade already exceeds $630 billion.
The transatlantic economic relationship is already the world’s largest, accounting for one third of total goods and services trade and nearly half of global economic output, while supporting 13 million U.S. and EU jobs. In both the United States and the EU, small and medium businesses are critical motors of growth, job creation and innovation.
USITC responded by organizing the TTIP roundtables, which will be held from September 9th through September 27th in key cities. The schedule for the roundtables is available at http://www.usitc.gov/332_541_Trade_Barriers.htm
For more information on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership and U.S trade with the European Union, visit www.USTR.gov/TTIP.