USITC to examine trade policy impact on underserved communities

The first investigation, Distributional Effects of Trade and Trade Policy on US Workers, 2026 (Inv. No. 332-599), will build on information presented in the 2022 USITC report Distributional Effects of Trade and Trade Policy on US Workers (Inv. No. 332-587). The commission expects to submit its first report in the upcoming series to the USTR by January 20, 2026, according to a press release by the USITC.

The USITC will produce a public report on the effects of trade policy on underrepresented and underserved communities. The process will involve community-based open conversations, a symposium on related academic research, and an exploration of economic literature on the topic. This initiative will identify data limitations and propose new analyses using restricted data.

The commission intends to publish a notice in the Federal Register at a later date of the time, place, and procedures to be followed for the community-based discussions and academic symposium and for the filing of written submissions from interested parties for this first report.

As part of this investigation, the commission will also host a virtual seminar series, the first of which will take place the week of October 16, 2023, that will be open to public observers. Invited researchers will present ongoing or recently completed work examining the potential distributional effects of goods and services trade and trade policy on US workers and underrepresented and underserved communities.

These seminars may also include relevant research from related fields outside trade, for example, examining the distributional effects of other policies on US workers and underrepresented and underserved communities, to the extent such research would be useful in developing ways to analyse the distributional effects of trade. Another commission-hosted seminar series is planned for 2024.

Fibre2Fashion News Desk (NB)