Personal Care Products Council Applauds US Congress for TPA Legislation

The Personal Care Products Council applauds U.S. Congress for passage of Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) legislation, which will help facilitate global beauty trade.

“We now look forward to continued progress and finalization of the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) and Trans-Atlantic Trade & Investment Partnership Agreement (T-TIP) – these agreements will provide new opportunities for enhancing the global beauty trade. The TPP Agreement is the first trade agreement that will include specific regulatory coherence provisions for cosmetics and personal care products," said Francine LaMoriello, executive vice president, global strategies for the Personal Care Products Council.  "These commitments will help American cosmetics and personal care products companies deal with technical regulatory trade barriers that impede our industry’s ability to provide safe, innovative products in a timely fashion to consumers around the world. " 

LaMoriello continued: “We believe trade agreements such as TPP and T-TIP will contribute to significant export growth for the U.S. cosmetics and personal care sector, especially by small and medium sized companies. As a dynamic sector of our nation’s economy, our industry is a leader in exports and heavily depends on trade—in 2013, exports exceeded $11 billion. In addition to global companies, our industry also is comprised of small and medium-sized companies, and such free trade agreements as TPP and TTIP will offer new opportunities for these companies to expand their global reach while creating more jobs in the United States.”

The TPA bill comes as the two of the most ambitious trade negotiations in the nation’s history, the TPP and the T-TIP, are underway to further tear down trade barriers to American goods and services. According to data from the World Bank, together these two trade agreements would further open markets encompassing nearly 1.3 billion customers and approximately 60 percent of global gross domestic product.

TPA expired in 2007 and is needed for the United States to successfully conclude these negotiations.