A Wall Street Journal blog by William Mauldin describes a recent meeting with Obama and his “trade team” to strategize over the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) and Trade Promotion Authority. The end of the blog has the following list of participants, “as provided by the White House.”
It is notable that the agencies primarily responsible for intellectual property (USPTO, Library of Congress) and healthcare (DHHS) are not at the table, event though intellectual property issues – especially those around patents and health, and copyright and the digital environment – are among the most difficult issues remaining in the TPP, and promise to be similarly controversial in the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership. (The Department of Commerce, which oversees USPTO, is included, but with patents on medicines being one of the main outstanding issues, one might think USPTO would be called in.)
Here is the list of participants.
- Vice President Biden
- Mr. Froman
- Jacob Lew, Secretary of the Treasury
- Penny Pritzker, Secretary of Commerce
- Thomas Perez, Secretary of Labor
- Susan Rice, Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs
- Denis McDonough, Assistant to the President and Chief of Staff
- Dan Pfeiffer, Assistant to the President and Senior Advisor
- Valerie Jarrett, Senior Advisor and Assistant to the President for Intergovernmental Affairs and Public Engagement
- Robert Nabors, Assistant to the President and Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy
- Gene Sperling, Assistant to the President and Director of the National Economic Council
- Jennifer Palmieri, Assistant to the President and Director of Communications
- Miguel Rodriguez, Assistant to the President and Director of the Office of Legislative Affairs
- Katie Beirne Fallon, Deputy Assistant to the President and Deputy Director of Communications
- Caroline Atkinson, Deputy National Security Advisor for International Economic Affairs
- William Burns, Deputy Secretary of State
- Steve Ricchetti, Chief of Staff to Vice President Biden
