USDA’s Foreign Agricultural Service is improving and streamlining its reporting of sanitary and phytosanitary provisions (SPS) and technical barriers to trade (TBT) information by launching a new SPS/TBT Data Management System (DMS). The new system allows users to monitor, evaluate, and facilitate U.S. government comments on trade-impacting measures that foreign countries have filed with the World Trade Organization (WTO).

More specifically, users can review the scope of the measure, track comment deadlines, access WTO notifications and the underlying full-text of the measure, and locate new and historical documents using key-word searches. Users can  also sign up for daily or weekly email alerts letting recipients know when a particular country has notified a measure to the WTO.

Before accessing the DMS system, users will need to sign up for a USDA eAuthentication Level 1 account at https://identitymanager.eems.usda. gov/registration/index.aspx. Click on the “Level 1 Access” button on the right side of the page, enter the requested information, and submit the registration request. In about an hour, the potential user will receive an email with a link to activate the eAuthentication account. Click on the link provided in the email.

Using your eAuthentication credentials, users will then be ready to enter the SPT/TBT DMS at https://www.fas.usda.gov/sps_tbt_dms. The first time users log into DMS they will need to complete and submit a user request form. Users will receive an email confirming the approval of  their request within 24-hours.  Effective April 1, users will be required to have a DMS account in order to receive the weekly newsletter.