Beyond the tariff fight: The real Indo-Pacific trade agenda

AAIP’s latest report documents the non-tariff barriers costing U.S. exporters and Indo-Pacific economies billions -- and the policy commitments to fix them

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Thursday, June 11, 2026 — The American Association of the Indo-Pacific (AAIP) today released Non-Tariff Barriers in the Indo-Pacific: A Sector-by-Sector, Country-by-Country Analysis, a comprehensive review of the regulatory, licensing, and standards-based barriers that continue to impede U.S. exports and investment across the region.

The report catalogues non-tariff barriers (NTBs) across eleven sectors covering more than twenty Indo-Pacific economies. Many of the barriers documented form the substantive agenda of the Trump administration's recent Agreements on Reciprocal Trade (ARTs) with Indonesia, Vietnam, Cambodia, Bangladesh, and other regional partners.

"Tariffs have dominated the trade policy conversation for the last eighteen months, but tariffs can be paid. Non-tariff barriers make trade unpredictable, slow, and in many cases simply uneconomic," said Jackson Cox, President of AAIP.

"This report is a reminder that the structural barriers facing American exporters and investors in the Indo-Pacific are documented, persistent, and quantifiable. They are also the issues on which the recent bilateral agreements deliver the most durable value."

Although the Trump administration’s Agreements on Reciprocal Trade focus on tariff regimes that are going through multiple iterations, it’s clear the NTB commitments embedded in those agreements --  including Indonesia's exemption of U.S. goods from halal certification, Vietnam's commitments on data localisation and intellectual property enforcement -- remain relevant.

"The agreements rest on more than the tariff leverage that produced them," Cox said. "These are formal commitments by national governments to dismantle barriers that have cost American businesses – and the economies themselves -- billions of dollars over many years. The administration has continued to treat the ARTs as binding and expect the commitments to be implemented, and we will work with with our partners in the region to ensure that they are."

"Our objective is to ensure that the commitments made at the negotiating table translate into policy change on the ground," Cox said. "The agreements are a foundation. The work now is implementation, and the work of AAIP is to make sure that work gets done, and that it will benefit both American exporters and America’s economic partners in the region."

Sectoral fact sheets will be published beginning June 23, 2026.