U.S. FDI in Chile is concentrated largely in the financial and manufacturing sectors. Chile applies a uniform ad valorem tariff of 11 percent on imports from all countries with which it has not already negotiated free trade agreements. Chile's tariffs are bound at 25 percent ad valorem. However, some significant barriers do exist. Chile's major border measure barriers are in the agricultural sector.
Chile maintains a price band system for wheat, wheat flour, vegetable oils, and sugar.
This variable tariff system is designed to maintain domestic prices for these commodities within a predetermined band, delaying the impact of changes in international market prices on Chilean producers and consumers. Chile also imposes minimum customs value requirements for imports of agricultural products on occasion, in response to low world prices. Further, imports of used automobiles are prohibited. U.S. exports of poultry are effectively blocked from the Chilean market through a sanitary requirement that the United States considers unjustified and discriminatory. The U.S. Government has protested this requirement to the Chilean Government and has raised the issue in the WTO Sanitary and Phytosanitary Committee.