(Reuters) - Briefing Pacific trading partners on progress in U.S.-Japan trade talks is an important step in moving discussions on a 12-nation trade bloc to the next level, U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman said on Wednesday. The United States and Japan said after a leaders' summit last month they had found a path forward on access to Japan's farm and auto markets but gave no details of what was agreed.

INDIANAPOLIS | Steel dumping poses a real threat to jobs in Northwest Indiana, and policy-makers in Washington need to take heed, industry officials said. Industry leaders said the domestic steel industry was "under assault" from a surge of subsidized imports that are being sold below market rates. They called for stronger enforcement of international trade rules during a town hall forum Wednesday at the Association for Iron and Steel Technology AISTech 2014 conference in Indianapolis.

President Obama’s visit to Japan from April 23-25 was important for US-Japan alliance relations. But did the visit genuinely strengthen trust between Japan and the United States? A number of outstanding problems indicates that there is room for a great deal of improvement.

(Reuters) - Former South African Trade Minister Alec Erwin will lead a World Trade Organization panel appointed to judge a landmark trade dispute over Australia's anti-tobacco laws, the global trade body said on Tuesday. Erwin, a former trade unionist and member of the South African Communist Party, will chair a three-strong panel whose other members are Swiss law professor Francois Dessemontet and Billie Miller, a former foreign minister of Barbados.

NEW DELHI: The US government is coming under intense pressure from lawmakers to act against India at the World Trade Organization (WTO) for what they say are violations of patent rules. The tough stance adopted by US lawmakers raises the pressure on the new Indian government to swiftly swing into action to check against potential damage to bilateral trade ties, which have taken a knock in recent months.

(Reuters) - Japan and the United States have made progress on a two-way trade deal but a gap remains and effort is needed to come to a final compromise, a top official in Japan's cabinet said on Wednesday. Yasutoshi Nishimura, senior vice-minister of the Cabinet Office, told reporters in New York the two countries were in the "last stretch" of a deal vital to the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a 12-nation bloc that would extend from Asia to Latin America.

(Reuters) - A standoff between the United States and Japan is holding up talks on a sweeping Pacific free trade pact and a lack of authority to push an eventual deal through the U.S. Congress without amendment may be undercutting Washington's hand. After weekend talks in Singapore, including two separate sessions between Japan and the United States, Japanese Economics Minister Akira Amari said "considerable gaps" remained with the United States on bread-and-butter issues like farm tariffs.

(Reuters) - Russia has requested talks with the European Union on the EU's energy rules that challenge Gazprom's business model, in a possible first step towards filing a dispute at the World Trade Organization, WTO officials said on Thursday. The EU introduced the legislative package in 2009 with the aim of opening up gas and electricity markets, but Russia has objected strongly to it even before the current crisis in its ties with the European Union.

BEIJING, April 30 (Xinhua) -- China urges quick action to plan and create an Asia-Pacific free trade area (FTA), a senior official with the Ministry of Commerce (MOC) said Wednesday. China has proposed forming a working group to study the feasibility of the Asia-Pacific free trade agreement, said the MOC's Assistant Minister Wang Shouwen at a press conference on this year's trade ministerial meeting of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC).

(Reuters) - China imposed anti-dumping and anti-subsidy duties on imports of polysilicon from the European Union, the Commerce Ministry said on Wednesday, the latest move in a long-standing dispute over solar materials. Solar panels were at the centre of a trade row last year after the European Union decided to impose anti-dumping duties on panels made in China. Polysilicon is a raw material used in the manufacture of solar panels.