Internet Advocates: USTR Took Wrong Direction on Digital Trade
The Office of U.S. Trade Representative’s decision to abandon digital trade demands at the World Trade Organization will lead to more restrictive international data flows, tech and open-internet advocates said Monday. USTR Katherine Tai in October withdrew U.S. support for…
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Timely, relevant coverage of court proceedings and agency rulings involving tariffs, classification, valuation, origin and antidumping and countervailing duties. Each day, Trade Law Daily subscribers receive a daily headline email, in-depth PDF edition and access to all relevant documents via our trade law source document library and website.
Trump-era proposals at the WTO, which addressed data localization restrictions and other impediments to data flow in places like China. Tai said the USTR withdrew to allow Congress to better regulate domestically. Her decision has left a vacuum where the U.S. used to influence data governance frameworks around the world, said Natalie Dunleavy Campbell, a senior director at Internet Society. This “highly regulated approach to the internet” resembles policies in places like China and Russia, and it will influence other countries to shift in the same direction, she said during a Congressional Internet Caucus Academy panel. Hopefully, the USTR will shift toward a more balanced set of rules that helps foster the benefits of the internet but provides domestic regulatory policy space to “deal with real harms,” said Lori Wallach, director of Rethink Trade. The administration hasn’t “articulated the reason for the pullback very well,” and the U.S.’s position on international data flows doesn’t appear to be heading in a “positive direction,” said Jonathan McHale, vice president-digital trade at Computer & Communications Industry Association. USTR didn’t comment.