Thread by @alanbeattie

Those US negotiating objectives for a UK trade deal. What do you reckon this bit is referring to? (Clue: Nye Bevan.) And BTW - "procedural fairness" can be a bit of a Trojan horse.
"Procedural Fairness for Pharmaceuticals and Medical Devices:
- Seek standards to ensure that /mf

/ government regulatory reimbursement regimes are transparent, provide procedural fairness, are nondiscriminatory, and provide full market access for U.S. products."
ustr.gov/sites/default/…

This about fostering innovation is relatedly about drug patents.

"Respect the Declaration on the TRIPS Agreement and Public Health...and ensure that the Agreement fosters innovation and promotes access to medicines, reflecting a standard similar to that found in U.S. law".

If I were a Stilton manufacturer I'd be lawyering up about now.
"Prevent the undermining of market access for US products through the improper use of the UK’s system for protecting or recognizing geographical indications, including...protect[ing] generic terms for common use".

Sorry Brits, not many public procurement contracts for you.
"Exclude sub-federal coverage (state & local govts) from the commitments...Keep in place domestic preferential purchasing programs such as...“Buy America” requirements on Federal assistance to state & local projects".

Also, you'd better not annoy Israel. I hope you didn't think you'd have an independent foreign policy or anything.

"Discourage politically motivated actions to boycott, divest from, and sanction Israel"

This shouldn't be in a trade deal, but unless UK rejoins ERM to enter the euro I doubt it will matter.

"Ensure that the UK avoids manipulating exchange rates in order to prevent effective balance of payments adjustment or to gain an unfair competitive advantage."

1."Establish specific commitments for trade in products developed through agricultural biotechnologies"
2. "Provide for enforceable and robust SPS obligations that build upon WTO rights and obligations, including with respect to science-based measures".
1.GMOs 2.chlorine chicken.

Same provision (a bit toned down IIRC) from the revised Nafta to deter the UK from signing a bilat with China, should that ever happen.

"Provide a mechanism to ensure transparency and take appropriate action if the UK negotiates a free trade agreement with a non-market country."

See, not all bad. Presume this is the US labour unions preventing undercutting. I wonder if an enterprising public international lawyer cd go after the UK hostile environment demands on employers?

"Require the UK to ensure that foreign workers are protected under labor laws."

OK am going to go and do some work now. BTW would welcome comments, critical or otherwise, from actual experts on US FTAs (@scottlincicome etc) on my takes. These were just my impressions from a skim reading.

Actually one more thing. One of the fun things I found about covering trade in DC was the unabashed unsentimental unstrategic venality of the whole thing, and you see it here. Special relationship? Churchill bust in the Oval Office? Standing shoulder to shoulder in Iraq? /mf

All irrelevant. Look through this deal and it's ooh look, the poultry lobby! The grain lobby! Big Pharma! The pro-Israel lobby! The labour unions! The Americans aren't exactly magnanimous in trade policy, but my God at least you know where you are with them.