Enforcing the Market Opening Commitments in the Trump Trade Deals

In an interview with Bloomberg last week, U.S. Trade Rep. Jamieson Greer was asked about enforcement of all the recently negotiated trade deals:

Question: On implementing those deals ... you mentioned that you would be looking and monitoring them for any violations. How will this administration judge what is a violation and what the consequences of that would be?

Greer: So for example, we put out a fairly detailed joint statement with Indonesia, and we're finalizing the underlying agreement. And in there, you can see that they've made commitments on tariff levels where they're going to remove all of their tariffs. They've made commitments on non-tariff barriers with respe ct to agricultural inspections and the way they treat certain digital trade. And so our office, which has hundreds of people, the Office of the US Trade Representative, they watch this, and they make sure that Indonesia actually does what it's supposed to do. And if they don't, the President has his tariff authority. I mean, all of the deals are premised, and the modified rates for these countries are premised, on them actually opening their market, making the investment and purchase commitments they've agreed to. And if you don't, you can have the tariffs go back into place. This is basic trade enforcement, and that's what we intend to do here.

I have some questions about the process for assessing compliance in relation to the market opening commitments. (There are also investment and purchase commitments, but at this point I'm not quite sure what to make of these commitments as a general matter, so I'm not thinking much about their enforcement.)

First, will there be a formal mechanism for interest groups to submit complaints about particular foreign government regulations, practices, tariffs, etc.? Greer mentions that USTR folks will be watching for violations, but those USTR folks seem pretty busy these days. Presumably they would welcome private sector input on this, as it is producers who will be most aware of any trade barriers they are facing. Of course, producers can always go to the government -- their members of Congress or the administration -- directly if they have connections. But a formal process to gather information on trade barriers is often used, and I'm curious whether the Trump administration will establish something along these lines.

Second, will there be transparency as to the decisions made by the administration on perceived non-compliance? In particular, will information be provided to the public about the specific situations where the Trump administration has come to the conclusion that a government is not complying? Will there be a published analysis on the question of whether other governments' actions or inactions are in compliance? I would think that members of Congress and various interest groups would appreciate some transparency here (as would many members of the general public). We'll see if they press the Trump administration on this and, if so, whether they get anything.