USITC Announces Distributional Effects of Trade Series

The U.S. International Trade Commission (USITC) has instituted the first of five investigations that will synthesize and critically review information on the potential distributional effects of goods and services trade and trade policy on U.S. workers and underrepresented and underserved communities.

The investigations were requested by the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) in a letter received on January 25, 2023.

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

As requested, the USITC, an independent, nonpartisan, factfinding federal agency, will prepare a public report that will include information gathered through:

• Community-based open conversations targeted to the interests and concerns of specific underrepresented and underserved demographic and geographic communities. Additional information on the scope of the outreach is available in the Federal Register notice linked above; 
• A symposium focused on academic or similar research on the distributional effects of trade and trade policy on underrepresented and underserved communities, including results of existing analysis, evaluation of methodologies, the use of public and restricted data in current analysis, identification of gaps in data and/or in the economic literature, and proposed analysis that could be done with restricted data; and 
• Economic literature on the distributional effects of trade and trade policy on underrepresented and underserved communities including, among other things, the data limitations raised in these analyses. 

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 U.S. workers and underrepresented and underserved communities, to the extent such research would be useful in developing ways to analyze the distributional effects of trade. Another Commission-hosted seminar series is planned for 2024. 

Information regarding all of the public events held in conjunction with this investigation, including agendas and access information for the two seminar series, will be posted on the investigation specific web page as it becomes available. 

Further information on the scope of the investigation is available in the USITC’s notice of investigation, dated July 12, 2023