The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative is seeking input by Oct. 29 for its annual report on significant foreign barriers to, or distortions of, U.S. exports of goods and services and U.S. foreign direct investment.
Comments may be submitted with respect to one or more of the categories of trade barriers listed below (which have been revised somewhat from the previous year, most notably by the addition of duty evasion, circumvention, and transshipment). USTR is particularly interested in practices that may violate U.S. trade agreements, new or updated information on the barriers covered in its 2026 report, and information on new barriers. To the extent possible, each comment should include an estimate of the potential increase in U.S. exports, U.S. foreign direct investment, or U.S. e-commerce that would result from removing the identified barrier.
Commenters should submit information related to one or more of the following export markets to be covered in the report (those marked in bold are new to the list this year): Algeria, Angola, the Arab League, Argentina, Australia, the Bahamas, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Bolivia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brazil, Brunei, Cambodia, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cote d’Ivoire, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador, Ethiopia, the European Union, Ghana, Guatemala, Guyana, Honduras, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Iraq, Israel, Japan, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Korea, Kuwait, Laos, Libya, Malaysia, Mexico, Moldova, Morocco, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Nigeria, North Macedonia, Norway, Oman, Pakistan, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, the Philippines, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, Singapore, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, Trinidad and Tobago, Tunisia, Türkiye, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, Uruguay, Venezuela, and Vietnam.
- import policies (e.g., tariffs and other import charges, quantitative restrictions, import licensing, customs barriers and shortcomings with respect to trade facilitation or customs valuation practices, tax policies that affect the competitiveness of U.S. exports, and other market access barriers)
- duty evasion, circumvention, and transshipment (e.g., persistent undervaluation or misclassification of traded goods or services, smuggling, temporary import schemes, transshipment, policies that support or fund duty evasion, and failures to take effective action to address evasion measures and transshipment by third countries)
- subsidies (e.g., export subsidies, such as export financing on preferential terms and export subsidies that displace U.S. exports in third-country markets, and import substitution subsidies, such as subsidies contingent on the purchase or use of domestic rather than imported goods)
- intellectual property protection (e.g., inadequate patent, copyright, trade secret, and trademark regimes and inadequate enforcement of intellectual property rights)
- services (e.g., prohibitions or restrictions on foreign participation in the market, discriminatory licensing requirements or regulatory standards, local presence requirements, and unreasonable restrictions on what services may be offered)
- investment (e.g., limitations on foreign equity participation and on access to foreign government-funded research and development programs; local content requirements; joint venture requirements; technology transfer requirements; export performance requirements; and restrictions on repatriation of earnings, capital, fees, and royalties)
- anti-competitive practices (e.g., government-tolerated anticompetitive conduct of state-owned or private firms that restricts the sale or purchase of U.S. goods or services in the foreign country’s markets, abuse of competition laws that inhibits trade, and fairness and due process concerns by companies involved in competition investigatory and enforcement proceedings)
- sanitary and phytosanitary measures (e.g., measures that unnecessarily restrict trade without furthering safety objectives because they are applied beyond the extent necessary to protect human, animal, or plant life or health, not based on science, or maintained without sufficient scientific evidence)
- technical barriers to trade (e.g., unnecessarily trade-restrictive standards, labeling, conformity assessment procedures, or technical regulations)
- government procurement restrictions (e.g., policies that exclude U.S. goods or services, closed bidding and bidding processes that lack transparency)
- state-owned enterprises (e.g., actions by SOEs and governments with respect to SOEs involved in the manufacture or production of non-agricultural goods or the supply of services that constitute significant barriers to, or distortions of, U.S. exports of goods and services or U.S. investments that may negatively affect U.S. firms and workers)
- other non-market policies and practices (e.g., adopting and pursuing industrial plans that target specific industries for domination by domestic enterprises, pressuring or otherwise acting to ensure domestic enterprises purchase domestic-made products over U.S. imported products, creating or maintaining non-market excess capacity particularly in key industrial sectors, and directing or allowing regulatory authorities to exercise their authority in a discriminatory manner)
- labor (e.g., significant violations of internationally-recognized labor rights or other practices that contribute to the suppression of wages, including where they influence trade flows or investment decisions in ways that constitute significant barriers to, or distortions of, U.S. exports of goods and services or U.S. investment that may negatively affect U.S. firms and workers)
- environment (e.g., weak or unenforced environmental laws and regulations, significant acts of environmental degradation, illegal harvesting and trade of natural resources, and other harmful environmental practices that may provide a benefit or incentive to producers or investors or that constitute significant barriers to, or distortions of, U.S. exports of goods and services or U.S. investment that may negatively affect U.S. firms or workers)
- other barriers, including those that encompass more than one category, such as bribery and corruption, or that affect a single sector
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