TAPP Letter to Chairman Lee Terry and Ranking Member Jan Schakowsky

The Honorable Chairman Lee Terry and the Honorable Ranking Member Jan Schakowsky
Subcommittee on Commerce, Manufacturing, and Trade
Committee on Energy and Commerce
U.S. House of Representatives
2125 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515

Dear Chairman Terry and Ranking Member Schakowsky,

I write today on behalf of the Trade Alliance to Promote Prosperity (TAPP) to thank you for holding Thursdayʼs hearing, “A Tangle of Trade Barriers: How Indiaʼs Industrial Policy is Hurting U.S. Companies.” It was perhaps the most important public conversation to date concerning Indiaʼs recent, egregious intellectual property violations.

The Subcommittee membersʼ insightful questions and comments, taken together with compelling testimony from the likes of Mark Elliot of the Global Intellectual Property Center, should be instructive to Secretary of State John Kerry as he continues Indo-U.S. strategic talks, and to new U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman as he prepares for the 18th round of Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations next month.

The Trade Alliance to Promote Prosperity (TAPP) urges members and the administration to embrace protocols that respect intellectual property rights as part of responsibly negotiated trade agreements among nations. Free trade works and protectionism doesnʼt, but free trade requires an intellectual property framework that both incentivizes and protects private U.S. investment abroad.

Sincerely,

Patrick Rosenstiel
Executive Director
Trade Alliance to Promote Prosperity

Cc:

The Honorable Vice Chairman Leonard Lance
The Honorable Marsha Blackburn
The Honorable Gregg Harper
The Honorable Brett Guthrie
The Honorable Pete Olson
The Honorable David McKinley
The Honorable Mike Pompeo
The Honorable Adam Kinzinger
The Honorable Gus Bilirakis
The Honorable Bill Johnson
The Honorable Billy Long
The Honorable Joe Barton
The Honorable Fred Upton
The Honorable G.K. Butterfield
The Honorable John Sarbanes
The Honorable Jerry McNerney
The Honorable Peter Welch
The Honorable John D. Dingell
The Honorable Bobby L. Rush
The Honorable Jim Matheson
The Honorable John Barrow
The Honorable Donna M. Christensen
The Honorable Henry A. Waxman