Let us move to some non-tariff barriers

There is so much tariff news all around. But there is also a discussion on what non-tariff trade barriers. That is barriers that are not linked to customs duties but are behind the border. All countries have them in different forms. However, all may not be against WTO rules while some may be.

The USTR's National Trade Estimate Report is a comprehensive account of how the US perceives other trading nation's non-tariff trade barriers. The latest 2025 NTE report is here.

And here is the list of what it perceives to be non-tariff barriers:

• Import policies (e.g., tariffs and other import charges, quantitative restrictions, import licensing, customs barriers and shortcomings in trade facilitation, and other market access barriers);Technical barriers to trade (e.g., unnecessarily trade restrictive standards, conformity assessment procedures, or technical regulations, including unnecessary or discriminatory technical regulations or standards for telecommunications products); 

• Sanitary and phytosanitary measures (e.g., measures that unnecessarily restrict trade without furthering safety objectives because they are applied beyond the extent necessary to protect human, animal, or plant life or health, not based on science, or maintained without sufficient scientific evidence);

 • Government procurement (e.g., “buy national” policies and closed bidding);

 • Intellectual property protection (e.g., inadequate patent, copyright, trade secret, and trademark regimes and inadequate enforcement of intellectual property rights);

 • Services barriers (e.g., 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); 

• Electronic commerce / digital trade barriers (e.g., barriers to cross-border data flows, discriminatory practices affecting trade in digital products, restrictions on the provision of Internet-enabled services, and other restrictive technology requirements); 

• Investment barriers (e.g., limitations on foreign equity participation and on access to foreign government-funded research and development programs, local content requirements, technology transfer requirements and export performance requirements, and restrictions on repatriation of earnings, capital, fees and royalties); 

• Subsidies, including export subsidies (e.g., export financing on preferential terms and agricultural export subsidies that displace U.S. exports in third country markets) and import substitution subsidies (e.g., subsidies contingent on the purchase or use of domestic rather than imported goods); 

• Anticompetitive practices (e.g., government-tolerated anticompetitive conduct of state-owned or private firms that restricts the sale or purchase of U.S. goods or services in the foreign country’s markets or abuse of competition laws to inhibit trade, and fairness and due process concerns by companies involved in competition investigatory and enforcement proceedings in the country); 

• State-owned enterprises (e.g., actions by SOEs and by governments with respect to SOEs involved in the manufacture or production of non-agricultural goods or in the supply of services that constitute significant barriers to, or distortions of, U.S. exports of goods and services, U.S. investments, or U.S. electronic commerce, which may negatively affect U.S. firms and workers. These actions include subsidies and non-commercial advantages provided to and from SOEs and practices with respect to SOEs that discriminate against U.S. goods or services, or actions by SOEs that are inconsistent with commercial considerations in the purchase and sale of goods and services);

• Labor (e.g., concerns with failures by a government to protect internationally recognized worker rights 1 or to eliminate discrimination in respect of employment or occupation, in cases where these failures influence trade flows or investment decisions in ways that constitute significant barriers to, or distortions of, U.S. exports of goods and services, U.S. investment, or U.S. electronic commerce, which may negatively affect U.S. firms and workers); 

• Environment (e.g., concerns with a government’s levels of environmental protection, unsustainable stewardship of natural resources, and harmful environmental practices that constitute significant barriers to, or distortions of, U.S. exports of goods and services, U.S. investment, or U.S. electronic commerce, which may negatively affect U.S. firms or workers); and 

• Other barriers (e.g., barriers or distortions that are not covered in any other category above or that encompass more than one category, such as bribery and corruption, or that affect a single sector).

There is long country wise list of perceived barriers thereafter.

The statement of India at the IMF recently provide's it's perspective on non-tariff measures (NTMs).

In this regard, we draw the staff attention to our buff statement of the previous year, wherein it has been shown that India’s non-tariff measures (NTM) are significantly lower than leading economies. This is also buttressed by the latest UNCTAD’s TRAINS database besides the World Bank’s World Integrated Trade Solution (WITS) database. The significantly higher NTMs in leading economies particularly impact India’s service sector, limiting the utilisation of India’s comparative advantage to benefit the global economy. Second, in erecting trade barriers, countries face the trade-off between tariffs, which are transparent and objective, and NTMs, which are, by definition, non-transparent and subjective in interpretation. Thus, while most economies – including the leading ones have chosen to resolve this trade-off through intensive use of the opaque and subjective NTMs, India uses the only lever, which is transparent and objective. Finally, India’s tariff structure needs to be seen in the context of trade barriers to global services vis-à-vis goods, the removal of which could help realise India’s demographic dividend. 

Will the focus now shift to non-tariff barriers? This is a far more complex and diverse areas spanning sectors and regulations. A trade policy enthusiast's paradise!