The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative is seeking input by Oct. 30 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, including through the removal of references to e-commerce and digital trade). USTR is particularly interested in practices that may violate U.S. trade agreements, new or updated information on the barriers covered in its 2025 report, and information on new barriers. 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, 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, Honduras, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Israel, Japan, Jordan, Kenya, Korea, Kuwait, Laos, 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, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, Tunisia, Turkey, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, Uruguay, and Vietnam.
- import policies (e.g., tariffs and other import charges, quantitative restrictions, import licensing, pre-shipment inspection, customs barriers, trade facilitation or customs valuation practices, duty evasion or circumvention, and other market access barriers)
- subsidies (e.g., export subsidies, such as export financing on preferential terms and agricultural 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; technology transfer and export performance requirements; and restrictions on repatriation of earnings, capital, fees, and royalties)
- competition (e.g., government-tolerated anticompetitive conduct 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 or discriminatory standards, conformity assessment procedures, labeling, 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 non0market 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 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 of natural resources, and other harmful environmental practices that provide a benefit or incentive to producers or investors or 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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