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 Country Placement

The Special 301 designations and actions announced in this Report are the result of deliberations among all relevant agencies within the U.S. Government, informed by extensive consultation with affected stakeholders, foreign governments, the U.S. Congress, and other interested parties.

USTR, together with the Special 301 subcommittee of the Trade Policy Staff Committee, works to make a balanced assessment of U.S. trading partners' IPR protection and enforcement, as well as related market access issues, in accordance with the statutory criteria set out by Congress (see Annex 1).

This assessment is necessarily conducted on a case-by-case basis, taking into account diverse factors such as a trading partner's level of development, its international obligations and commitments, the concerns of rights holders and other interested parties, and the trade and investment policies of the United States. It is informed by the various cross-cutting issues and trends identified below in Section I – Developments in Intellectual Property Rights Protection and Enforcement. Each assessment is based upon the specific facts and circumstances that shape IPR protection and enforcement regimes in a particular trading partner.

In the year ahead, USTR will continue its bilateral engagement with the governments of the trading partners that are discussed in this Report. In preparation for and in the course of those interactions, USTR will:

 Engage with U.S. stakeholders, the U.S. Congress, and other interested parties to ensure that the U.S. Government's position is well-informed by the full range of views on the pertinent issues;

Conduct extensive discussions with individual trading partners regarding their respective IPR regimes;

Encourage those trading partners to engage fully, and with the greatest degree of transparency, with the range of stakeholders on IPR matters; and

Identify, where possible, appropriate ways in which the U.S. Government can be of assistance. 

USTR will conduct these discussions in a manner that both advances the policy goals of the United States and respects the importance of meaningful policy dialogue with U.S. trading partners. Additionally, USTR will continue to work closely with other U.S. Government agencies to ensure consistency of U.S. trade policy objectives with other Administration policies.

2013 Special 301 List

The 2013 Special 301 review process examined IPR protection and enforcement in 95 trading partners. Following extensive research and analysis, USTR has listed 41 trading partners below as follows: 5