Procurement Thresholds for 2022 and 2023

On November 26, 2021, the Office of the United States Trade Representative published in the Federal Register (86 FR 67579) Procurement Thresholds for Implementation of the Trade Agreements Act of 1979.

Executive Order 12260 requires the U.S. Trade Representative to set the U.S. dollar thresholds for application of Title III of the Trade Agreements Act of 1979, as amended (19 U.S.C. 2511 et seq.). These obligations apply to covered procurements valued at or above specified U.S. dollar thresholds. In conformity with the provisions of Executive Order 12260, and in order to carry out U.S. trade agreement obligations, the U.S. Trade Representative has determined the U.S. dollar procurement thresholds, effective on January 1, 2022, for calendar years 2022 and 2023.

During the past 50 years, the United States has played a prominent role in the development of international trade rules on government procurement. The most notable of U.S. international agreements addressing procurement and trade are the World Trade Organization (WTO)’s plurilateral Agreement on Government Procurement (GPA) and the procurement chapters in most U.S. free trade agreements (FTAs), all of which are implemented primarily through TAA. Data limitations and other factors make it difficult to quantify accurately the size of the global government procurement market. However, these international agreements have opened many procurement opportunities around the world to international competition, worth trillions of U.S. dollars annually, while also requiring parties to establish transparent and nondiscriminatory rules for certain procurements among the parties.U.S. federal procurement expenditures are estimated to have been equivalent to 9.3% of U.S. gross domestic product in 2017.

A 2017 study estimates that the United States opens as much as 80% of its federal contracts to foreign suppliers.