America’s retreat from writing the global digital trade rules must be reversed to protect our businesses and innovators.
ALEC Federalism and International Relations Senior Task Force Director Karla Jones and ALEC Communications and Technology Task Force Director Jake Morabito co-authored an op-ed in The Center Square regarding the the retreat of US digital trade leadership on the world stage — and why that is detrimental to our national interests.
In a stunningly misguided move, the Biden Administration reversed longstanding U.S. digital trade policy last October. Not only does this decision threaten the rules-based international trade system, but also jeopardizes modern e-commerce and undermines decades of American-led innovation across the world.
U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai has been at the forefront of this policy shift, leaving many to wonder why. Why compromise the free flow of data across international borders? Why put America’s valuable intellectual property at risk? Unfortunately, those questions remain unanswered as Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF) negotiations collapsed and USTR also abandoned prioritization of digital trade. The next US President has the unique opportunity to reassert America’s leadership in shaping the rules of global commerce, which will be a boon to American industry – especially our job-creating small businesses.
This retreat from digital trade leadership runs counter to our national interest as it supports three million direct and indirect U.S. jobs and at least $2.6 trillion in GDP, according to the US Chamber of Commerce. It also accounts for 55% of US exports of traded servicestotaling nearly $1 trillion in annual sales. Those numbers alone demonstrate the critical importance of digital trade is to business of every size.
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America’s retreat from writing the global digital trade rules must be reversed to protect our businesses and innovators. That is the only way to prevent Beijing, which has no interest in protecting personal data or source code, from rewriting the rules for us.
