19 U.S.C. § 2502
Section 2502 · Congressional statement of purposes
This is the Trade Agreements Act of 1979
Amended 1 time on record
Applied in 10 court decisions — leading case Trojan Technologies, Inc. v. Pennsylvania (1990)
Most recently applied in United States v. Smith & Nephew, Inc. (November 2010)
How often courts cite this section
Court decisions citing this, by year.Markers show enactment, consequential amendments, and circuit splits over this section — watch for a citation surge after a change or a disagreement. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.
The purposes of this Act are—
(1) to approve and implement the trade agreements negotiated under the Trade Act of 1974 [19 U.S.C. 2101 et seq.];
(2) to foster the growth and maintenance of an open world trading system;
(3) to expand opportunities for the commerce of the United States in international trade; and
(4) to improve the rules of international trade and to provide for the enforcement of such rules, and for other purposes.
Editorial notes U.S. Code · Office of the Law Revision Counsel
References in Text
This Act, referred to in provision preceding par. (1), is Pub. L. 96–39, July 26, 1979, 93 Stat. 144, known as the Trade Agreements Act of 1979. For complete classification of this Act to the Code, see References in Text note set out under section 2501 of this title and Tables.
The Trade Act of 1974, referred to in par. (1), is Pub. L. 93–618, Jan. 3, 1975, 88 Stat. 1978, as amended, which is classified principally to chapter 12 (§2101 et seq.) of this title. For complete classification of this Act to the Code, see References in Text note set out under section 2101 of this title and Tables.