Notice2026-18775
Request for Comments on Significant Foreign Trade Barriers for the 2027 National Trade Estimate Report
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Metadata and text below are from the Federal Register, a public-domain U.S. government work. Always verify the official published version before relying on it for any legal matter.
Published
September 14, 2026
Issuing agencies
Trade Representative, Office of United States
Abstract
The Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR), through the Trade Policy Staff Committee (TPSC), publishes the National Trade Estimate Report on Foreign Trade Barriers (NTE Report) each year. USTR invites comments to assist it and the TPSC in identifying significant foreign barriers to, or distortions of, U.S. exports of goods and services and U.S. foreign direct investment for inclusion in the NTE Report. USTR also will consider responses to this notice as part of the annual review of the operation and effectiveness of all U.S. trade agreements regarding telecommunications products and services that are in force with respect to the United States.
Full Text
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<title>Federal Register, Volume 91 Issue 176 (Monday, September 14, 2026)</title>
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[Federal Register Volume 91, Number 176 (Monday, September 14, 2026)]
[Notices]
[Pages 58247-58250]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [<a href="http://www.gpo.gov">www.gpo.gov</a>]
[FR Doc No: 2026-18775]
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OFFICE OF THE UNITED STATES TRADE REPRESENTATIVE
[Docket Number USTR-2026-0498]
Request for Comments on Significant Foreign Trade Barriers for
the 2027 National Trade Estimate Report
AGENCY: Office of the United States Trade Representative.
ACTION: Notice and request for comments.
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SUMMARY: The Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR),
through the Trade Policy Staff Committee (TPSC), publishes the National
Trade Estimate Report on Foreign Trade Barriers (NTE Report) each year.
USTR invites comments to assist it and the TPSC in identifying
significant foreign barriers to, or distortions of, U.S. exports of
goods and services and U.S. foreign direct investment for inclusion in
the NTE Report. USTR also will consider responses to this notice as
part of the annual review of the operation and effectiveness of all
U.S. trade agreements regarding telecommunications products and
services that are in force with respect to the United States.
DATES: Thursday, October 29, 2026 at 11:59 p.m. EDT: Deadline for
submission of comments.
ADDRESSES: USTR strongly prefers electronic submissions made through
the Federal eRulemaking Portal: <a href="http://www.regulations.gov">http://www.regulations.gov</a>
(<a href="http://Regulations.gov">Regulations.gov</a>). The instructions for submitting
[[Page 58248]]
comments are in sections IV and V below. The docket number is USTR-
2026-0498. For alternatives to online submissions, please contact Jiexi
``Jesse'' Huang, at <a href="/cdn-cgi/l/email-protection#a2e4cdd0c7cbc5ccf6d0c3c6c7e0c3d0d0cbc7d0d1f0c7d2cdd0d6e2d7d1d6d08cc7cdd28cc5cdd4"><span class="__cf_email__" data-cfemail="286e475a4d414f467c5a494c4d6a495a5a414d5a5b7a4d58475a5c685d5b5c5a064d4758064f475e">[email protected]</span></a> or 202-395-
3475 in advance of the deadline.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Mark A. DiPlacido, Chair of the Trade
Policy Staff Committee, at <a href="/cdn-cgi/l/email-protection#11577e637478767f456370757453706363787463624374617e636551646265633f747e613f767e67"><span class="__cf_email__" data-cfemail="dd9bb2afb8b4bab389afbcb9b89fbcafafb4b8afae8fb8adb2afa99da8aea9aff3b8b2adf3bab2ab">[email protected]</span></a> or
202-395-5232.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:
I. Background
Section 181 of the Trade Act of 1974, as amended (19 U.S.C. 2241),
requires USTR annually to publish the NTE Report, which sets out an
inventory of significant foreign barriers to, or distortions of, U.S.
exports of goods and services, including agricultural commodities and
U.S. intellectual property; foreign direct investment by U.S. persons,
especially if such investment has implications for trade in goods or
services; and U.S. electronic commerce. The inventory facilitates U.S.
negotiations aimed at reducing or eliminating these barriers and is a
valuable tool in enforcing U.S. trade laws and agreements, ensuring
trade is fair and reciprocal, and promoting U.S. economic and security
interests. You can find the 2026 NTE Report on USTR's website at
<a href="https://ustr.gov/sites/default/files/files/Press/Releases/2026/National%20Trade%20Estimate%20Report%202026.pdf">https://ustr.gov/sites/default/files/files/Press/Releases/2026/National%20Trade%20Estimate%20Report%202026.pdf</a>. To ensure compliance
with the statutory mandate for the NTE Report and the Administration's
commitment to focus on significant foreign trade barriers, USTR will
take into account comments in response to this notice when deciding
which significant barriers to include in the NTE Report.
II. Topics on Which the TPSC Seeks Information
To assist USTR in preparing the NTE Report, commenters should
submit information related to one or more of the following categories
of foreign trade barriers:
1. Import policies. Examples may include 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.
2. Technical barriers to trade. Examples may include unnecessarily
trade restrictive standards, labeling, conformity assessment procedures
(i.e., testing, inspection, calibration, audit, certification, and
accreditation), or technical regulations for goods, including
unnecessary or discriminatory technical regulations or standards for
telecommunications products. Examples may also include pursuing unique
national standards when international standards already exist in order
to leverage the economic power of the domestic market to promote or
compel the adoption of those standards in global markets, and pressing
other countries to accept a definition of international standards that
results in the exclusion of standards developed by U.S.-domiciled
standard development organizations. Additionally, discriminatory
practices may involve strategies that prevent U.S. or foreign
stakeholder involvement in the overall standards development process.
3. Sanitary and phytosanitary measures. Examples may include
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.
4. Government procurement. Examples may include policies that
exclude U.S. goods or services, closed bidding, and bidding processes
that lack transparency.
5. Intellectual property protection. Examples may include
inadequate patent, copyright, trade secret, and trademark regimes and
inadequate enforcement of intellectual property rights.
6. Services. Examples may include 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. Examples may
also include discriminatory or burdensome barriers to cross-border data
flows, discriminatory practices affecting trade in digital products,
restrictions on the provision of internet-enabled services, and other
restrictive technology requirements.
7. Investment. Examples may include 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.
8. Subsidies. Examples may include export subsidies, such as export
financing on preferential terms and export subsidies (including
agricultural 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.
9. Anticompetitive practices. Examples may include government-
tolerated anticompetitive conduct of state-owned or private firms that
restricts or distorts 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 in the country.
10. State-owned enterprises. Examples may include actions by state-
owned enterprises (SOEs) or by governments with respect to SOEs
involved in the manufacture or production of non-agricultural goods or
in the supply of services that constitute significant barriers to, or
distortions of, U.S. exports of goods and services or U.S. investments,
and which may negatively affect U.S. firms and workers. These actions
may include subsidies and non-commercial advantages provided to and
from SOEs and practices with respect to SOEs that discriminate against
U.S. goods or services, or actions by SOEs that are inconsistent with
commercial considerations in the purchase and sale of goods and
services.
11. Other non-market policies and practices. Examples may include
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, including by treating domestic enterprises more
favorably. Also of concern are failures to take effective action to
address non-market policies and practices of third countries.
12. Labor. Examples may include significant violations of
internationally recognized labor rights or other practices that
contribute to the suppression of wages, including cases where these
violations or practices influence trade flows or investment decisions
in ways that constitute significant barriers to, or distortions of,
U.S. exports of goods and services or
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U.S. investment, and which may negatively affect U.S. firms and
workers. Internationally recognized labor rights include: the right of
association; the right to organize and bargain collectively; a
prohibition on the use of any form of forced or compulsory labor; a
minimum age for the employment of children, and a prohibition on the
worst forms of child labor; elimination of discrimination in respect of
employment or occupation; and acceptable conditions of work with
respect to minimum wages, hours of work, and occupational safety and
health. Also of concern are failures to take effective action to
address violations or ineffective protection of labor rights by third
countries.
13. Environment. Examples may include concerns with a government's
weak or unenforced environmental laws and regulations, significant acts
of environmental degradation, illegal harvesting and trade of natural
resources (e.g., timber, fish, wildlife), and other harmful
environmental practices that may provide a benefit or incentive to
producers or investors in that country (i.e., that encourage
environmental arbitrage), or which constitute significant barriers to,
or distortions of, U.S. exports of goods and services or U.S.
investment, and which may negatively affect U.S. firms or workers. Also
of concern are failures to take effective action to address
environmental degradation, and illegal harvesting and trade of natural
resources by third countries.
14. Duty Evasion, Circumvention, and Transshipment. Examples may
include persistent undervaluation or misclassification of traded goods
or services, smuggling, temporary import schemes, transshipment, and
policies that support or fund duty evasion. Also of concern are
failures to take effective action to address evasion measures and
transshipment by third countries.
15. Other barriers. Examples may include significant barriers or
distortions that are not covered in any other category above, or that
encompass more than one category, such as bribery and corruption, or
that affect a single sector.
Please provide, if available, the titles of relevant laws or
measures and a description of the concerns with which the laws or
measures relate to the significant foreign barriers or distortions
identified. Commenters should place particular emphasis on any
practices that may violate U.S. trade agreements. USTR also is
interested in receiving new or updated information pertinent to the
barriers covered in the 2026 NTE Report in addition to information on
new barriers. If USTR does not include in the 2027 NTE Report
information that it receives pursuant to this notice, it will maintain
the information for potential use in future discussions or negotiations
with trading partners.
Commenters should submit information related to one or more of the
following export markets to be covered in the report: 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, T[uuml]rkiye, Ukraine, the United Arab Emirates, the United
Kingdom, Uruguay, Venezuela, and Vietnam. Commenters may submit
information related to significant barriers or distortions in export
markets other than those listed in this paragraph.
In addition, Section 1377 of the Omnibus Trade and Competitiveness
Act of 1988 (19 U.S.C. 3106) (Section 1377) requires USTR annually to
review the operation and effectiveness of U.S. telecommunications trade
agreements that are in force with respect to the United States. The
purpose of the review is to determine whether any foreign government
that is a party to one of those agreements is failing to comply with
that government's obligations or is otherwise denying, within the
context of a relevant agreement, ``mutually advantageous market
opportunities'' to U.S. telecommunications products or services
suppliers. USTR will consider responses to this notice in the review
called for in Section 1377 and highlight both ongoing and emerging
barriers to U.S. telecommunications services and goods exports in the
2027 NTE Report.
III. Estimate of Increase in Exports
To the extent possible, each comment should include an estimate of
the potential increase in exports of goods or services of the United
States, U.S. foreign direct investment, or U.S. electronic commerce
that would result from removing any significant foreign trade barrier
the comment identifies, as well as a description of the methodology the
commenter used to derive the estimate. Commenters should express
estimates within the following value ranges: less than $25 million; $25
million to $100 million; $100 million to $500 million; and over $500
million.
IV. Procedures for Written Submissions
To be assured of consideration, submit your written comments by the
October 29, 2026, 11:59 p.m. EDT deadline. All submissions must be in
English. USTR strongly encourages submissions via <a href="http://Regulations.gov">Regulations.gov</a>,
using Docket Number USTR-2026-0498.
To submit via <a href="http://Regulations.gov">Regulations.gov</a>, use Docket Number USTR-2026-0498 in
the ``search for'' field on the home page and click ``search.'' The
site will provide a search-results page listing all documents
associated with this docket. Find a reference to this notice by
selecting ``notice'' under ``document type'' in the ``refine documents
results'' section on the left side of the screen and click on the
``comment'' link.
<a href="http://Regulations.gov">Regulations.gov</a> allows users to make submissions by filling in a
``type comment'' field, or by attaching a document using the ``upload
file'' field. USTR prefers that you provide submissions in an attached
document and note ``see attached comments with respect to (name of
country)'' in the ``comment'' field on the online submission form. The
first page of the submission must identify ``Comments Regarding Foreign
Trade Barriers to U.S. Exports for 2027 Reporting--[name of country or
countries discussed].'' Commenters providing information on more than
one country should provide a separate attachment for each country as
part of the same submission. USTR strongly encourages commenters to
provide only one submission. USTR prefers submissions in Microsoft Word
(.doc) or Adobe Acrobat (.pdf). If you use an application other than
those two, please indicate the name of the application in the ``type
comment'' field.
You will receive a tracking number upon completion of the
submission procedure at <a href="http://Regulations.gov">Regulations.gov</a>. The tracking number is
confirmation that <a href="http://Regulations.gov">Regulations.gov</a>received your submission. Keep the
confirmation for your records. USTR is not able to provide technical
assistance for <a href="http://Regulations.gov">Regulations.gov</a>.
For further information on using <a href="http://Regulations.gov">Regulations.gov</a>, please consult
the resources provided on the website by clicking on ``How to Use
<a href="http://Regulations.gov">Regulations.gov</a>'' on the bottom of the home page. USTR may not consider
submissions that you do not make in accordance with these instructions.
[[Page 58250]]
If you are unable to provide submissions as requested, please
contact Jiexi ``Jesse'' Huang, in advance of the deadline at
<a href="/cdn-cgi/l/email-protection#90d6ffe2f5f9f7fec4e2f1f4f5d2f1e2e2f9f5e2e3c2f5e0ffe2e4d0e5e3e4e2bef5ffe0bef7ffe6"><span class="__cf_email__" data-cfemail="2a6c45584f434d447e584b4e4f684b5858434f5859784f5a45585e6a5f595e58044f455a044d455c">[email protected]</span></a> or 202-395-3475 to arrange for
an alternative method of transmission. USTR will not accept hand-
delivered submissions.
General information concerning USTR is available at <a href="https://www.ustr.gov">https://www.ustr.gov</a>.
V. Business Confidential Information (BCI) Submissions
If you ask USTR to treat information you submit as BCI, you must
certify that the information is business confidential and you would not
customarily release it to the public. For any comments submitted
electronically containing BCI, the file name of the business
confidential version should begin with the characters ``BCI.'' You must
clearly mark any page containing BCI with ``BUSINESS CONFIDENTIAL'' on
the top of that page. Filers of submissions containing BCI also must
submit a public version that will be placed in the docket for public
inspection. The file name of the public version should begin with the
character ``P.'' Follow the ``BCI'' and ``P'' with the name of the
person or entity submitting the comments.
VI. Public Viewing of Review Submissions
USTR will post written submissions in the docket for public
inspection, except properly designated BCI. You can view comments on
<a href="http://Regulations.gov">Regulations.gov</a> by entering Docket Number USTR-2026-0498 in the search
field on the home page.
Mark DiPlacido,
Chair of the Trade Policy Staff Committee, Office of the United States
Trade Representative.
[FR Doc. 2026-18775 Filed 9-11-26; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 3290-F4-P
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