USTR Seeks Comments on Foreign Trade Barriers for 2027 Trade Report

On September 14, 2026, the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) issued a request for public comments regarding barriers to trade and investment imposed on U.S. industry by foreign countries. The request is part of USTR’s annual National Trade Estimate Report on Foreign Trade Barriers (NTE Report), which sets out a comprehensive assessment of foreign barriers affecting U.S. exports of goods and services, foreign direct investment by U.S. persons, and U.S. electronic commerce. The NTE Report informs U.S. trade negotiations, enforcement actions, and policy decisions to promote fair and reciprocal trade, and to advance U.S. economic and security interests.
 
USTR invites parties — including businesses, industry groups, and trade associations — to submit comments highlighting foreign barriers they encounter or observe. The notice is similar to last year’s request for NTE Report comments, with an additional emphasis on trade barriers related to duty evasion, circumvention, and transshipment. The notice highlights dozens of export markets to be covered in the NTE Report, although commenters may submit information on markets beyond those listed. USTR requests that parties focus on barriers in specific categories, including:

1. Import policies, such as tariffs, quantitative restrictions, import licensing, customs barriers, or tax policies that affect the competitiveness of U.S. exports. 
2. Technical barriers, such as unnecessarily trade-restrictive standards, labeling, testing, inspection, or technical regulations for goods, including unnecessary or discriminatory technical regulations or standards for telecommunications products. 
3. Sanitary and phytosanitary measures, such as unnecessarily restrictive measures applied beyond the extent necessary to further health and safety objectives. 
4. Government procurement, such as policies that exclude U.S. goods or services, closed bidding, and bidding processes that lack transparency. 
5. Intellectual property protection, such as inadequate patent, copyright, trade secret, and trademark regimes and inadequate enforcement of intellectual property rights. 
6. Services restrictions, such as 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. 
7. Investment barriers, such as limitations on foreign equity participation and on access to foreign government-funded research and development programs, local content, technology transfer requirements, export performance requirements, and restrictions on repatriation of earnings and capital. 
8. Subsidies, including export subsidies or import substitution subsidies. 
9. Anticompetitive practices, including 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 inhibit trade, and fairness and due process concerns regarding proceedings in the country. 
10. State-owned enterprises, including subsidies and non-commercial advantages provided to state-owned enterprises.  
11. Other non-market policies and practices, including adopting industrial plans that target specific industries for domination by domestic enterprises, acting to ensure domestic enterprises purchase domestic-made products over U.S. imported products, and failure to take effective action to address non-market policies and practices of third countries. 
12. Labor issues, such as significant violations of internationally recognized labor rights, negatively affecting U.S. firms and workers  
13. Environmental issues, such as a government’s weak or unenforced environmental laws or harmful environmental practices that benefit producers or investors in other countries. 
14. Duty Evasion, Circumvention, and Transshipment, such as persistent undervaluation or misclassification of goods, 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, including any significant barriers or distortions that are not covered in any other category above. 

Any submissions regarding trade barriers in the relevant categories should include the titles of the applicable laws or measures and a description of the concerns related to each. In particular, submissions should highlight any practices that may violate U.S. trade agreements. Additionally, parties should include estimates of potential export increases that could result from the removal of these barriers. USTR is also accepting updated information concerning trade barriers discussed in the 2026 NTE Report.

USTR also conducts an annual review under Section 1377 of the Omnibus Trade and Competitiveness Act of 1988 to assess whether foreign governments are fulfilling their obligations under trade agreements in the telecommunications sector. As part of this review, USTR is also accepting comments regarding barriers to U.S. telecommunications services and goods exports for inclusion in the 2027 NTE Report.

All comments must be submitted by October 29, 2026, by 11:59 p.m. EDT.

For U.S. companies, industry groups, and trade associations, the invitation for comments offers a valuable opportunity to raise concerns about policies and practices that negatively impact U.S. economic interests. The comment submission process is a cost-effective way to ensure that trade issues are brought to the attention of USTR and prioritized accordingly. By providing detailed information about foreign barriers, commenters can assist USTR in identifying issues that have the most significant impact on U.S. exports and investments. Importantly, even if this information is not included in the 2027 NTE Report, USTR will retain it for reference in future discussions or negotiations with trading partners.

Buchanan has a team of international trade and national security attorneys, economists, accounting analysts and government relations professionals ready to help U.S. manufacturers with U.S. trade remedy laws and trade policy. Our dedicated team has decades of experience supporting clients across a range of industries – ranging from steel and iron industries, critical minerals, chemicals, and agricultural products – to protect U.S. companies against unfair trade.

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