The Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) is requesting public comments to help identify significant foreign barriers that impact U.S. exports and foreign direct investment for inclusion in the 2026 National Trade Estimate Report on Foreign Trade Barriers (NTE Report), a comprehensive assessment of foreign trade barriers affecting U.S. economic interests.
What is the NTE Report?
Established under the Trade Act of 1974 (19 U.S.C. 2241), the NTE Report inventories major foreign barriers that hinder U.S. exports of goods and services, including agricultural products and intellectual property, as well as barriers to U.S. foreign direct investment 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.
Requested Topics of Public Comments
USTR invites parties — including businesses, industry groups, and trade associations — to submit comments highlighting foreign barriers they encounter or observe. The notice highlights several 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:
- Import policies such as tariffs, quantitative restrictions, customs practices, or duty evasion and circumvention.
- Technical barriers such as restrictive standards, labeling, certification requirements, or discriminatory practices that prevent U.S. or foreign stakeholder involvement in the overall standards development process.
- Sanitary and phytosanitary measures, such as unnecessarily restrictive measures applied beyond the extent necessary to further safety objectives.
- Government procurement policies that exclude U.S. goods or services or bidding processes that lack transparency.
- Intellectual property protection concerns, including inadequate patent, copyright, trade secret, and trademark regimes or enforcement of intellectual property rights.
- Services prohibition or restrictions on foreign participation in the market, including discriminatory or unreasonable restrictions.
- Investment barriers, including limitations on foreign equity participation or access to foreign government-funded research, local content, technology transfer and export performance requirements or repatriation restrictions.
- Subsidies, including export subsidies or import substitution subsidies.
- Anticompetitive practices, anticompetitive conduct of state-owned or private firms, abuse of competition laws that inhibit trade, or fairness and due process concerns regarding proceedings in other countries.
- State-owned enterprises, including subsidies and non-commercial advantages provided to state-owned enterprises.
- Other non-market policies of other countries impacting trade, including industrial plans that target specific industries, the creation of non-market excess capacity, or discrimination by regulatory authorities.
- Labor issues, such as significant violations of internationally recognized labor rights negatively affecting U.S. firms and workers.
- Environmental issues, such as a government's weak or unenforced environmental laws or harmful environmental practices that benefit producers or investors in other countries.
- 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 2025 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 2026 NTE Report.
All comments must be submitted by October 30, 2025, by 11:59 p.m. EDT.
Conclusion
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 2026 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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