The USA Rice Federation submitted comments to the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative on the rice industry's negotiating interests and priorities in the upcoming negotiations for a Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (T-TIP) agreement. 

Market access to the EU has long been constrained by a complex mix of rice import duties and country-specific concessions, and U.S. sales have never recovered from the effects of the Liberty Link contamination of the commercial long-grain supply in 2006.  USA Rice is calling for complete trade liberalization for all types and forms of rice traded between the United States and the EU as well as negotiation of a functioning biotechnology regulatory system in Europe in order to remove the current legal roadblocks to recovery of the U.S. long-grain market.

The T-TIP negotiations are expected to be particularly challenging in agriculture and regulatory issues such as biotechnology.

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