Washington –The U.S. Trade Representative published the 2026 National Trade Estimate Report, an annual report detailing foreign trade barriers faced by U.S. exporters and laying out a roadmap for U.S. enforcement priorities. Of particular importance was USTR’s highlighting of barriers to U.S. digital exports, a key U.S. strength and source of growth. The report identified issues including digital services taxes, asymmetric platform regulation, data localization mandates and restrictions on cloud services, discriminatory local content quotas and audiovisual services mandates, and forced revenue transfers for digital news. This year’s NTE details the continued spread of such measures across key markets, including Australia, Brazil, Canada, the EU and its member states, India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, the UK, and Vietnam.
The Computer & Communications Industry Association submitted comments to USTR in response to its annual request to stakeholders, identifying 516 enacted and proposed digital trade barriers across 61 countries. CCIA has advocated for open markets for more than 50 years.
The following quote can be attributed to Jonathan McHale, CCIA Vice President of Digital Trade:
“As the Administration prioritizes U.S. export interests, it makes sense that its annual report highlights key foreign barriers in an area where the US is a leading exporter – digital trade. Digital trade has been a critical counterbalance to an endemic goods deficit, but its growth, and thus the health of the U.S. economy, has suffered from unjustified restrictions in many foreign markets.
“These measures, including digital services taxes, asymmetric platform regulation, data localization requirements, cloud restrictions, and forced revenue transfers, are spreading across key markets and directly limiting the ability of U.S. firms to compete and scale globally. We appreciate the attention to digital trade barriers and look forward to working closely with USTR to further advance U.S. market access goals.”
