Trade

Levi Strauss & Co. was the first and only major multinational company to publicly advocate for linkage of trade and labor, incorporating key workplace standards and worker rights provisions within the context of trade agreements. And we continue to advocate this position through Congressional testimony, meetings with senior government officials, trade negotiations and multi-stakeholder initiatives.

We work with governments, trade associations and NGOs around the world to advance our positions. Specifically, we encourage governments to negotiate trade programs that are transparent, offer simple but liberal rules of origin, and provide long-term predictability for businesses. We serve as a member of the U.S. government’s international trade advisory committee and participate on the boards of key trade associations. We also founded the first branded apparel industry trade association in Europe.

The rules and regulations governing trade programs are not always publicly available, and we encourage governments to provide up-to-date, transparent trade information.  We have brought this issue to the attention of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) trade ministers, who have agreed to pursue the matter.

Levi Strauss & Co. owns more than 5,000 trademark applications and registrations worldwide. We consider our intellectual property to be one of our most important assets, critical to the success of our brands. We are committed to protecting our trademarks from unfair competition, infringement and counterfeiting, and we strive to combat violations of intellectual property rights (IPR) in all of the countries in which we operate. To that end, we express our concerns about lax IPR enforcement, ineffective legislation and poor judicial practices to U.S. and foreign governments, including providing input to the U.S. Trade Representative under the annual Special 301 process.