Can APEC’s New Trade Policy Tool Help Design Better Measures? By Sylwyn C. Calizo Jr. and Chang Yan RongSingapore, 3 August 2026Non-tariff measures (NTMs) affect around 80 percent of trade in the APEC region, making how they are designed critical to how trade flows. Based on the Global Trade Alert database, the number of measures in force across APEC has practically tripled to around 23,587 measures over the last decade. As additional guidance, APEC has endorsed a new trade policy tool: the Best Practice Guidelines to Apply the APEC Cross-cutting Principles on NTMs. This highlights the importance of designing measures that achieve policy objectives while minimizing unintended trade effects.