International Trade

International trade has become increasingly important to the U.S. economy. Since 1990, U.S. exports have risen about 70 percent -- reaching nearly $700 billion a year. The United States has led the world in creating a system of open trade under accepted rules, in which the reduction of trade barriers, such as tariffs and import quotas, would help provide greater market access for U.S. goods and services. The current administration has sought to build on earlier efforts by negotiating several hundred separate trade agreements since 1992 that are aimed at opening markets and creating wider economic opportunities for Americans. This report examines (1) the number of trade agreements that the United States is party to, (2) the way in which the executive branch notifies Congress when trade agreements are entered into, and (3) the extent to which the public has ready access to information from government sources about trade agreements.

GAO noted that: (1) the number of trade agreements to which the United States is a party is uncertain; (2) officials at key agencies were unable to provide a definitive count of all U.S. trade agreements that are in force, despite the fact that the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR), the Department of State, and the Department of Commerce have created separate archives containing many agreements; (3) GAO identified 441 different trade agreements that entered into force from 1984 through 1998 among the three archives, but were not able to determine the total number of U.S. trade agreements in force; (4) this is because: (a) agency archives serve different purposes; (b) a governmentwide definition of what constitutes a trade agreement does not exist; and (c) there are recordkeeping weaknesses and inconsistencies in the archives; (5) the most comprehensive of these archives, was intended to include all agreements but contains only about two thirds of the total number of agreements that GAO identified by examining all three sources; (6) Commerce's archive is incomplete because federal agencies have not worked together to establish criteria for identifying agreements to be included, and no interagency procedure has been instituted for forwarding such trade agreements to Commerce; (7) Congress is notified when trade agreements are entered into through two formal mechanisms; (8) USTR's annual report, distributed to each member of Congress, includes a list of substantive trade agreements that it has negotiated since 1984 and that afford increased foreign market access to the United States; (9) other agreements negotiated by USTR, such as those that only regulate imports into the United States, are not included; (10) as required by law, State sends Congress a copy of any agreement that State determines is an international agreement based on certain criteria that State defines and applies; (11) other federal agencies are required to forward to State those agreements they negotiate, including trade agreements, that might fall within the criteria that State has established; (12) USTR recently established new procedures to improve its transmittal of new agreements to State for review; and (13) although federal agencies have provided the public with greater access to information about trade agreements in recent years, government sources available to the public are not always complete and accurate.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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