[JC] Now The Target, [DS] Event Distractions, [-Cruz] Important Marker – Episode 2079

• The mainstream media has been focusing on the additional amount of U.S. goods and services China has committed to purchase as the highlight of the agreement. However, they have missed the point. This agreement doesn’t start with China’s additional purchasing commitment, but with two top concerns in American businesses: intellectual property rights theft and forced technology transfer. The way this agreement is structured illustrates that, despite Trump’s rhetoric on trade imbalance, he values the ability to protect U.S. intellectual property rights and technology
• Strong Intellectual Property Protection and Enforcement
• The first chapter of the agreement is on intellectual property,  It covers a wide spectrum of topics, including trade secrets, confidential business information, pharmaceutical data, patents, piracy and counterfeiting on e-commerce platforms, manufacture and export of pirated and counterfeit goods, etc.
• Within each item is a clearly identified enforcement mechanism. All the United States has to do is to “affirm that existing U.S. enforcement procedures permit action by right holders.” This phrase is repeated throughout all enforcement sections.
•  the burden of action falls mostly on the Chinese side. For example, under the trade secret misappropriation section, once the rightful owner of a trade secret provides “preliminary evidence that measures were taken to keep the claimed trade secret confidential” and “evidence that its trade secret(s) were misappropriated by the accused party,” the accused party on the Chinese side has to bear “the burden of proof or burden of production of evidence.”
• The agreement also eliminates “any requirement that the holder of a trade secret establish actual losses as a prerequisite to initiation of a criminal investigation for misappropriation of a trade secret.” Furthermore, it speeds up the criminal proceeding for intellectual property rights violations.
• These changes are a tremendous relief for American businesses because they are the ones currently bearing the burden of proof for any trade secret misappropriation, and are required to establish an actual loss as a prerequisite for any criminal proceedings.
• Besides holding Chinese businesses accountable, the agreement also spells out how to hold the Chinese government and government employees accountable,   “China shall prohibit the unauthorized disclosure of undisclosed information, trade secrets, or confidential business information by government personnel or third party experts or advisors in any criminal, civil, administrative, or regulatory proceedings conducted at either the central or sub-central levels of government in which such information is submitted.”
• If China fails to deliver, the agreement says the United States will unilaterally reimpose tariffs on Chinese goods. Economists and China’s other trading partners, such as countries in the European Union, have already raised questions about whether China will have to reduce purchases from all other trading partners in order to fulfill their new trade obligations to the United States.
• It is also worth pointing out that the Trump administration is able to achieve all of the above for U.S. businesses, while paying a relatively small price. The Trump administration stopped calling China a currency manipulator. The United States agreed not to impose new tariffs on the $156 billion in consumer goods that were going to take effect this past Dec. 15.
• The United States will also cut the tariffs on the $120 billion in Chinese imports imposed last September from 15 percent to 7.5 percent.

Source: thefederalist.com

•  Here is he part of the letter that is intersting,  Given Professor Halper’s intelligence connections and government funding, it is reasonable to ask whether he used any taxpayer money in his attempt to recruit Trump campaign officials as sources.

•  Grassley’s language suggests that Halper had sought to “recruit Trump campaign officials as sources.” Did he? Did Halper attempt to recruit Trump campaign officials as sources and if so, whom? And did he have the FBI (or another agency’s) green light to do so? Grassley’s letter raises these questions.

Source: thefederalist.com

House Democrats conceal testimony of 18th witness from Trump team