On August 6, Deputy Prime Minister and Commerce Minister Suphajee Suthumpun announced the trip of "Team Thailand" delegation to the United States at the end of August for the next round of negotiations on the Agreement on Reciprocal Trade (ART). The delegation will be seeking exemptions for 13 additional export items and relief for the roughly 28% of Thai products that remain subject to U.S. duties. The Commerce Ministry has previously put the number of Thai tariff lines exempted under Section 301 at 2,120, spanning agriculture and food, electronics, industrial products and raw materials, aircraft, and medical equipment. Adding long-standing Section 232 exclusions brings the total to roughly 72% of Thai export products, leaving the remaining 28% that Bangkok now hopes to narrow. An earlier proposal covering seven product groups and 78 tariff lines, rice, cassava products, seafood, medical rubber gloves, pet food, and jewelry among them, is still outstanding.
Thailand has also reaffirmed three negotiating "red lines" ahead of the talks. The first concerns sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) standards, with Bangkok maintaining restrictions on imported pork containing beta-agonist growth promoters. The other two involve national security and U.S. demands for 100% foreign ownership in sensitive sectors, including telecommunications. A technical team, including representatives from the Ministries of Agriculture and Cooperatives and Public Health, travelled to the United States from August 27–29 for further negotiations, followed by policy-level discussions led by the Deputy Prime Minister from August 30–September 1.
