Allowing firms to use trademark law as a trade barrier limits competition, especially on price, damaging consumer interests.
American and Canadian trade officials, however, are significantly less impressed with the working group's assessment, and see it as a last-ditch attempt to vindicate an unfair trade barrier.
Last year, while the EU members continued to argue among themselves, three of the largest producers of modified crops America, Canada and Argentina filed a complaint at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) about the moratorium, arguing that it was an illegal trade barrier because there is no scientific basis for it.
Second, even if the offset argument is valid with the VEETC in place, the tariff still represents a substantial barrier to trade.
This ambiguity also frustrates American trade officials, who consider European labelling laws, both in theory and in their rather confused practice, to be a technical barrier to trade.
The simplicity of the American plan is attractive but also potentially misleading: as most poor countries know to their cost, tariffs are not the only barrier to trade.
Good governance: Although some 400 public companies have decided that a country's willingness to sponsor terrorism is no barrier to trade, relatively few have gone to such lengths to conceal their activities.
In December, China issued what is known as a technical barrier to trade notification to the World Trade Organization that detailed a proposed law requiring handset makers ensure preloaded apps and operating-system updates are in accordance with Chinese laws before the phones are sold in China.
These make more urgent the need to aggressively seek barrier-lowering trade agreements.
Voluntary trade benefits both sides, and every barrier to this freedom harms consumers.
FORBES: The Benefits of Free Trade Defined: The Consumer Always Wins
Western Sahara pinned between Morocco, Algeria, and Mauritania is the single greatest barrier to regional co-operation and trade, and a trigger for regional wars.
The World Bank estimates that over two-thirds of the overall benefits from Doha's barrier-lowering would come from freer farm trade.
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