The Trump administration's annual list of trade priorities says the administration will “double down” on the president’s agenda through continued tariffs, dealmaking and strengthening of domestic mineral production.
The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative's 2026 agenda outlines the methodology that the Trump administration has, and will continue, to use to implement its trade policy approach – a mixture of tariffs, narrow trade pacts, efforts to reshore critical industries for critical industries, and ongoing discussions with Chinese officials on how to manage bilateral trade.
When President Donald Trump entered the White House on Jan. 20, 2025, one of the first documents the incoming administration published was its “America First” trade policy. The memorandum outlined many of the policy priorities that have ended up shaping U.S. trade policy over the last 13 months.
The document called for a renewed focus on “reciprocal trade” and an uptick in efforts to identify and confront unfair trade practices. It also previewed some of the tariff hikes that came shortly after, including by directing officials to look into trade measures to combat fentanyl smuggling and illegal migration.
USTR’s 2025 trade policy agenda, published less than two months after that memorandum, made the ideological case for why the U.S. needed to take a renewed interest in producing more of what the country consumes.
In 2026, despite looming mid-term elections and Democrats trying to tie tariffs to high costs of living, the administration is signaling it will replicate its tariff policy from the first year while it cuts limited deals.
“The Trump Administration is going to double down on the America First Trade Policy in 2026,” the 2026 agenda reads. “Tariff and non-tariff barriers that have harmed American exporters and workers for decades are finally being resolved en masse… all while retaining the tariffs needed for our reindustrialization.”
The Supreme Court recently struck down a raft of emergency tariffs after finding Trump overstepped his presidential authorities. But the administration has already taken steps to replicate some of the tariffs, and his indicated that it is working on reimposing more using alternate legal authorities.
By keeping tariffs in place, even for countries that have offered trade concessions, the administration argues that it has broken the tradeoff between agriculture and manufacturing. For decades, the agenda says, policymakers had to choose between improved market access for U.S. agriculture and services or protecting U.S. manufacturing industries.
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In many cases, they opted to reduce tariffs on manufactured products to secure concessions in agriculture, USTR says.
“[F]arms and factories are no longer in competition for the benefits of U.S. trade policy,” the agenda argues.
The agenda celebrates recent deals, including those with Indonesia and the European Union which included new market access commitments for U.S. agriculture.
In an op-ed published in the Hill on Monday, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins and USTR Jamieson Greer also stress that the administration has been following up on trade pacts by organizing agricultural trade missions to countries put potential buyers in front of U.S. exporters.
“American farmers, ranchers, and producers are already reaping the benefits of President Trump’s America First approach, with domestic production scaling up and new markets opening for U.S. exports abroad,” Greer said in a statement Monday. “This year’s Trade Policy Agenda outlines how the Administration will capitalize off the success from the past year, advancing the prosperity of Americans today and the generations to follow.”
In addition to preserving tariffs and inking new agreements, the administration also plans to step up efforts to reshore critical industries, including minerals, according to the agenda.
Last month, officials launched an effort to build out a strategic reserve of critical minerals to support domestic industries. Such a reserve enjoys bipartisan support on Capitol Hill and the Biden administration also made reshoring critical mineral supply chains and other strategic industries a pillar of its industrial policy.
The Trump administration is set to double down on efforts to bolster the domestic supply of critical minerals in the coming year – which would also include phosphate and potash after both were added to the critical minerals list last year.
“USTR will negotiate a plurilateral agreement— the Agreement on Trade in Critical Minerals (ATCM)—with like-minded partners to establish common border-adjusted price mechanisms for specific minerals and downstream products,” the agenda says.
Under such a deal, countries that do not engage in market-distorting practices would see preferential trade terms, the agenda says.
The administration’s approach to international trade law also came into clearer focus last week when Greer spoke to law students at the University of Virginia. He argued that in recent decades, trade rules have diverted from their original purpose of advancing peace and prosperity to instead foster free trade and lower barriers as a goal in and of itself.
Accordingly, Greer argued the U.S. should “work outside established institutions and frameworks, where that is more likely to lead to peace and prosperity.”
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