USTR has opened the comment window for the 2027 National Trade Estimate Report, adding a duty evasion and transshipment category and asking filers to price the export gains at stake. With Section 301 now the administration’s load-bearing tariff authority, the docket is the year’s most consequential paperwork.
WASHINGTON, Sept. 16, 2026. The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative has invited public comment on foreign barriers to American exports of goods and services and to U.S. foreign direct investment for inclusion in the 2027 National Trade Estimate Report on Foreign Trade Barriers, opening a window that trade practitioners regard as the principal formal channel through which private complaints enter the federal tariff pipeline.
The request was published in the Federal Register on Sept. 14, 2026, under document number 2026-18775, and USTR announced it the same day. Comments are due Thursday, Oct. 29, 2026, at 11:59 p.m. Eastern time, and must be filed through Regulations.gov under Docket No. USTR-2026-0498.
Announcing the request, Ambassador Jamieson Greer said the administration’s approach traced to the first day of the term. “On his first day back in office, President Trump instituted an America First Trade Policy to reverse decades of foreign trade practices that disadvantaged American workers and businesses,” Greer said in the USTR statement. “Over the last year and a half, President Trump has used tariffs and trade deals to secure lasting wins for American workers and their families, eliminating foreign trade barriers while raising American workers’ wages and reinforcing our domestic supply chains. The Trump Administration remains focused on identifying and removing foreign trade barriers to strengthen the domestic and global competitiveness of American farmers, workers, and manufacturers.”
Why a routine notice is not routine this year
The NTE is an annual statutory obligation. USTR, working through the interagency Trade Policy Staff Committee, must deliver the report to the president and Congress by March 31 each year. The 2026 edition, submitted on March 31, 2026, was the 41st in the series and catalogued barriers facing U.S. exports across 63 trading partners.
In an ordinary year the comment request would draw filings from a familiar roster of industry associations and pass without broad notice. This is not an ordinary year.
The legal foundation of American tariff policy was rebuilt in 2026. In February the Supreme Court held in Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act does not confer tariff authority on the president, and U.S. Customs and Border Protection stopped collecting IEEPA duties on Feb. 24. The administration turned to Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974, whose 150-day clock ran from Feb. 24 to July 24, 2026; the Court of International Trade later held the 10 percent global rate imposed under that authority unlawful for failure to satisfy the statutory balance-of-payments condition.
What survived, and expanded, was Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974 and Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962. On July 23, 2026, the president directed USTR to impose Section 301 duties of 10 or 12.5 percent on 60 trading partners following forced-labor investigations, effective the next day. Separate Section 301 investigations are open against Brazil, where an additional 25 percent duty on certain imports took effect July 22, 2026; against Germany over pharmaceutical pricing, with a public hearing at the U.S. International Trade Commission scheduled for Sept. 22, 2026; and against Vietnam over intellectual property protection, initiated May 29, 2026.
Section 301 investigations do not begin in a vacuum. They begin with a documented finding that a foreign act, policy or practice is unreasonable, unjustifiable or discriminatory and burdens U.S. commerce. The NTE is the government’s standing catalogue of exactly such practices. Practitioners have long described it as the menu from which enforcement actions are ordered, and in a year when Section 301 has become the administration’s principal surviving tariff instrument, that description has acquired unusual force.
A company that wants a foreign practice addressed has a straightforward incentive to document it in this docket. A company whose foreign suppliers or affiliates could be caught by a resulting action has an equally strong incentive to read what others file, since submissions are posted to the public docket.
What USTR is asking for
The notice enumerates fifteen categories of barriers on which comment is sought.
They are import policies, covering tariffs, import charges, quantitative restrictions, import licensing, customs barriers, trade facilitation, customs valuation, tax policies and other market access obstacles; technical barriers to trade, including standards, labeling, conformity assessment procedures, technical regulations and discriminatory practices; sanitary and phytosanitary measures that unnecessarily restrict trade, are not science-based, or lack sufficient scientific evidence; government procurement policies that exclude U.S. goods or services or that rely on closed or nontransparent bidding; intellectual property protection across patent, copyright, trade secret and trademark regimes and their enforcement; and services barriers, including foreign participation restrictions, discriminatory licensing or regulatory standards, local-presence requirements, restrictions on cross-border data flows, treatment of digital products and internet-enabled services, and technology requirements.
The list continues with investment barriers, including foreign equity limits, access to government-funded research and development programs, local content and joint venture requirements, technology transfer mandates, export performance requirements and restrictions on repatriating earnings, capital, fees or royalties; subsidies, both export and import-substitution; anticompetitive practices, including government-tolerated conduct that distorts trade, abuse of competition law and due process concerns in competition proceedings; state-owned enterprises, covering subsidies, noncommercial advantages, discriminatory practices and conduct inconsistent with commercial considerations; other non-market policies and practices, including industrial plans, domestic purchasing preferences, non-market excess capacity and discriminatory regulatory practices; labor, covering significant violations of internationally recognized labor rights and practices that suppress wages in ways that affect trade or investment; environment, covering weak or unenforced environmental laws, environmental degradation and illegal harvesting or trade in natural resources; a category for duty evasion, circumvention and transshipment; and a residual category for significant barriers or distortions not otherwise covered, including sector-specific obstacles.
USTR asks commenters to supply the titles of relevant laws or measures where available, to describe the concerns associated with each identified barrier, and to emphasize practices that may violate U.S. trade agreements.
The transshipment category deserves attention
The duty evasion, circumvention and transshipment category, which USTR describes as covering undervaluation, misclassification, smuggling, temporary import schemes, transshipment and policies that support or fund duty evasion, is the item that most directly reflects the enforcement environment created by three years of escalating tariffs.
High tariff walls generate evasion pressure. When duty differentials between origins reach double digits, the economic return to misdeclaring origin, undervaluing invoices or routing goods through a third country rises accordingly. Framing this as a foreign trade barrier, rather than solely as a customs enforcement matter, is significant. It signals that USTR views foreign government tolerance of or support for evasion schemes as an actionable practice in its own right, which opens a path to country-level trade action rather than shipment-level enforcement.
For legitimate importers the implication is double-edged. Stronger pressure on transshipment hubs reduces the competitive disadvantage faced by firms that declare accurately and pay in full. It also raises the documentary burden on everyone, because origin verification requests increase across the board when enforcement intensifies. Importers sourcing from countries that have absorbed large volumes of redirected Chinese production since 2018 should expect heightened scrutiny of substantial transformation claims.
Pricing the barrier
A notable procedural feature is that USTR asks commenters to estimate the potential increase in U.S. exports, foreign direct investment or electronic commerce that would result from removing each identified barrier, and where possible to describe the methodology behind the estimate. The agency asks filers to place estimates in one of four bands: less than $25 million; $25 million to $100 million; $100 million to $500 million; and more than $500 million.
This is not a formality. Quantification determines whether a complaint reads as a grievance or as a case. A submission that identifies a licensing requirement and asserts that it is burdensome competes for attention with dozens of similar filings. A submission that identifies the same requirement, cites the implementing regulation, describes the compliance cost per unit, and estimates a defensible export gain in the top band is materially more likely to be carried into the report and, from there, into an enforcement conversation.
The banding also allows USTR to rank barriers across countries and sectors on a common metric, which is precisely the kind of input an agency needs when deciding where to open the next investigation.
The telecommunications review rides along
USTR will also treat responses as input to its annual review under Section 1377 of the Omnibus Trade and Competitiveness Act of 1988, which examines whether foreign governments are complying with telecommunications trade agreement obligations or are denying mutually advantageous market opportunities to American telecommunications products and services suppliers. The agency said it will highlight ongoing and emerging barriers to U.S. telecommunications exports in the 2027 report.
That review has taken on broader significance as the boundary between telecommunications services and digital trade has blurred. Data localization mandates, interconnection pricing, spectrum allocation practices, submarine cable landing rights and equipment certification regimes all fall within its scope, and each has become a live commercial issue for American technology exporters.
Markets in scope
The notice lists a broad range of export markets, including Canada, China, Mexico, the European Union, India, Japan, Korea, the Philippines, Taiwan, Thailand, Vietnam and the United Kingdom, among many others. USTR also said it will consider comments addressing significant barriers or distortions in markets not listed.
That open invitation is worth noting. The NTE has historically concentrated on large markets, but the list of economies subject to American trade action has expanded well beyond the traditional roster. Commenters with concerns about smaller markets are not procedurally disadvantaged by their absence from the enumerated list.
Filing mechanics
USTR has set out requirements that it warns may result in submissions not being considered if they are not followed.
All submissions must be in English and filed through Regulations.gov under Docket No. USTR-2026-0498 by the Oct. 29 deadline. USTR states a preference for comments attached as a Microsoft Word or PDF document rather than typed directly into the portal form. The first page should identify the filing as “Comments Regarding Foreign Trade Barriers to U.S. Exports for 2027 Reporting” followed by the name of the country or countries discussed. Filers must provide a separate attachment for each country discussed and submit only one submission. USTR advises retaining the Regulations.gov tracking number as confirmation of receipt.
Business confidential information carries additional requirements. The filer must certify that the information is business confidential and would not customarily be released publicly. Electronic files containing such information must have file names beginning with “BCI,” and each page containing it must be marked “BUSINESS CONFIDENTIAL.” A public version must also be filed, with its file name beginning with “P.”
Filers unable to use the portal are directed to contact USTR at the foreign trade barriers report mailbox or by telephone before the deadline to arrange an alternative method. Submissions other than properly designated confidential material will be posted to the public docket.
Stakeholder reactions
Customs brokerage and trade advisory firms moved quickly to flag the docket to clients. GHY International published a client alert on Sept. 14 summarizing the categories and deadlines and highlighting the duty evasion and transshipment category alongside the export-gain estimate bands.
Industry associations that file annually, including groups representing agriculture, pharmaceuticals, medical devices, software, financial services, entertainment and manufacturing, treat the NTE cycle as a fixed item on the advocacy calendar. For many of them the submission is the work product of a year of member surveys, and the resulting text often reappears in the report with limited alteration.
Critics of the process, including trade policy organizations that have analyzed the NTE across administrations, have argued that the report conflates legitimate domestic regulation with protectionism, and that categories such as technical barriers to trade and sanitary and phytosanitary measures can be used to challenge foreign health, safety and environmental rules that have no protectionist purpose. That criticism has sharpened as the report’s contents have become more directly linked to tariff action.
Foreign governments read the report closely and often respond publicly, since inclusion signals elevated risk of an investigation. In several cases over the past two years, listed practices have been modified in advance of the report’s publication.
Economic impact analysis
The NTE itself imposes no duties and creates no obligations. Its economic significance is entirely derivative, and it operates on a lag of one to three years between documentation and action.
That lag is where the value sits for businesses. The barriers documented in the 2027 report will inform the investigations opened in 2027 and 2028, and those investigations will determine tariff exposure for the remainder of the decade. A firm that ignores the docket is not avoiding a cost today; it is forgoing influence over a policy instrument that has demonstrated the capacity to move rates by ten to twenty-five percentage points on short notice.
The reverse risk is equally real and less often considered. Section 301 actions impose duties on imports from the offending country, not on the exports that were blocked. A U.S. company that complains about a foreign market access barrier may find that the resulting remedy is a tariff on goods it imports from that same country, including from its own affiliates or contract manufacturers. Firms with significant two-way exposure to a market should evaluate both sides before filing, and should consider whether a submission emphasizing negotiated resolution rather than tariff remedy better serves their position.
There is also an aggregate consideration. Each new Section 301 action layers onto an already complex duty structure comprising China-specific Section 301 lists, the July 2026 forced-labor duties, Brazil-specific duties, and an expanding set of Section 232 measures covering steel, aluminum, copper, semiconductors, pharmaceuticals, unmanned aircraft systems and polysilicon. Compliance cost rises faster than duty cost in this environment, because every additional layer multiplies the number of determinations required per entry line.
Implications for importers and exporters
For exporters, the docket is an opportunity that closes on Oct. 29 and does not reopen for a year. The recommended approach is to identify the two or three barriers with the largest quantifiable effect on export volume, document each with the specific law or regulation, quantify the export gain from removal with a stated methodology, place it in the appropriate band, and file a separate attachment for each country. Detail beats volume.
For importers, the docket is an early warning system. Submissions are posted publicly, and reading what is filed against the countries in a company’s supply base provides months of advance notice about which practices may attract an investigation. A sourcing decision made in late 2026 on the basis of current duty rates, without reference to what is being alleged in this docket, is a decision made with half the available information.
For firms with both exposures, which is most multinationals, the two exercises should be run together. The question is not only what the company wants USTR to address, but what other parties are asking USTR to address in markets where the company buys.
Companies should also calibrate expectations about timing. The report is due March 31, 2027. Any investigation flowing from it would follow a further initiation notice, comment period and hearing. The forced-labor action illustrates that this sequence can be compressed: USTR initiated 60 investigations in March 2026, made findings and proposed action in June, and took final action in July. Where the administration is motivated, the interval between documentation and duty can be measured in months rather than years.
What to watch
Between now and the Oct. 29 deadline, the signals worth tracking are the volume and character of filings in Docket No. USTR-2026-0498, particularly under the duty evasion and transshipment category, which has no direct predecessor and will establish what kinds of allegations USTR is prepared to entertain.
Beyond the docket, the Sept. 22 Section 301 hearing on Germany’s pharmaceutical pricing practices at the U.S. International Trade Commission will indicate how the agency is handling investigations targeting a close ally’s domestic health policy, a template with obvious application to other European systems. The Vietnam intellectual property investigation initiated in May has not produced a proposed action, and its trajectory will show whether the administration intends to pursue single-country Section 301 cases in parallel with the broad multi-country model used for forced labor.
Finally, the 2027 report’s publication on or before March 31 will show which of this autumn’s submissions survived the interagency process. That list, more than any speech, is the best available forecast of where American tariff policy goes next.