Pursuant to President Donald Trump's signing of a March 31 Executive Order directing the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) and the Department of Commerce (DOC) to issue a report on countries with significant trade deficits, the two agencies issued a Federal Register notice seeking public input by May 10 and scheduling a public hearing on May 18. Of particular interest is input regarding the effect of nontariff barriers (NTBs), including standards-related barriers and conformity assessment issues, on U.S. trade deficits with Canada, China, the European Union, India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, and Vietnam.
As the coordinator of the U.S. standardization community, the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) will submit a response highlighting the importance of the public-private partnership and broad collaboration in promoting harmonized standards and conformity assessment solutions that facilitate trade and bolster U.S. business. ANSI is seeking input from its members, standards developing organizations (SDOs), industry, academia, government agencies, and other relevant stakeholders, to be considered for inclusion in the ANSI response.
The Executive Order is available here. The DOC Federal Register notice is available here.
As the DOC's deadline for comment is Wednesday, May 10, any input to be considered as part of the ANSI response must be received by ANSI by 12 p.m. ET on Monday, May 8.
Please direct any questions or email input to ANSI's international policy department at [email protected].