The International Trade Commission has established a schedule for events soliciting public input on the distributional effects of trade and trade policy on U.S. workers. The ITC launched a Section 332 investigation on this topic in July 2023 and is slated to issue its first report in January 2026.
U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai has asserted that the Biden administration is “rewriting the story on trade” by pursuing a more worker-centered trade policy “to bring more people in, to build a more resilient, sustainable, and inclusive society.” To aid in this transition USTR commissioned an ITC report on how existing trade policy has affected “those who have been historically underserved, marginalized, and underrepresented.” That report was submitted in November 2022, and Tai said that while it “provides a foundation to guide our future work and engagements with trading partners,” it also “revealed critical research needs and data gaps that call for further investigation.”
Tai subsequently asked the ITC to help address these shortcomings in a series of five reports to be delivered over the next 15 years. The deadline for the first report is Jan. 20, 2026, and the remaining four are expected at three-year intervals thereafter.
To gather information for its initial report the ITC will conduct six virtual roundtable discussions between Jan. 15 and Feb. 12, 2025; in-person roundtables and focus group meetings between March and May 2025; and an academic symposium June 5-6, 2025. Additional in-person and virtual events may be held between October 2024 and May 2025. More details can be found here.
The ITC states that these events will focus on the potential distributional effects of goods and services trade and trade policy on U.S. workers and underrepresented and underserved communities, including examining distributional effects by race and ethnicity; gender; gender identity and orientation; age; and skill, wage, and income, as well as effects on persons with disabilities, persons who live in rural areas or urban areas and persons otherwise adversely affected by persistent poverty, and members of religious minorities.
USTR has also previously directed the ITC to expand its research and analysis capabilities so that its future advice on the probable economic effects of trade agreements and trade policies includes estimates of the potential distributional effects on U.S. workers. Among other things, USTR wants the ITC to develop models capable of analyzing (1) the effect of expanded foreign market access on affected U.S. exporting industries and (2) the indirect effect on U.S. exports of intermediate inputs when final goods receive preferential access to the U.S. market.
For more information on the development and implementation of U.S. trade policy and how it may affect your business or industry, please contact Nicole Bivens Collinson at (202) 730-4956 or via email.
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