Washington — The Computer & Communications Industry Association submitted comments to the U.S. Trade Representative in response to its annual request for organizations to outline trade barriers affecting U.S. companies seeking to expand into overseas markets. USTR considers the responses to include in its annual National Trade Estimates (NTE) report which provides a country-by-country overview of trade barriers.
CCIA also released a two-pager detailing the main takeaways of the comments, updated its digital trade barrier visualization on the CCIA website, and released a series of two-pagers breaking down the barriers region-by-region (with breakdowns for the European Union, Asia & the Pacific region, the Middle East and Africa, the Americas, and the United Kingdom all available through the visualization on the website).
CCIA outlined growing barriers to digital trade, both longstanding and novel, pursued by governments seeking to promote their own companies and disadvantage US suppliers. Such measures range from discriminatory taxes and exclusionary regulations to forced revenue transfers between U.S. and local firms. Barriers have continued to harm U.S. businesses in traditionally challenging markets like China and Russia, but also in markets of allies and other key trading partners. Key barriers included discriminatory digital services taxes, data localization mandates and certification standards that undermine U.S. cloud providers, obligatory payments for U.S. online services providers to powerful local constituencies, surveillance demands, censorship, emerging restrictions on AI-enabled services and technologies, and various new restrictions targeted at U.S. companies that did not apply to other rivals, including outright prohibitions on U.S.-supplied services.
CCIA’s comments encourage USTR to address digital trade barriers as the tech industry is a key U.S. exporter, delivering a $256 billion trade surplus in digitally-deliverable services in 2023.
The following quote can be attributed to Jonathan McHale, CCIA Vice President of Digital Trade:
“As policy shifts aimed at shoring up domestic competitiveness start showing results, USTR’s traditional role of negotiating and enforcing trade agreements will be critical to the success of these historic investments.
“Priority areas that will be the source of U.S. long-term competitiveness and job growth, from chip manufacturing and design to AI-enabled services, need access to foreign markets for that investment to bear fruit. Thus, addressing foreign barriers remains deeply intertwined with the United States’ long-term security and prosperity.
“CCIA looks forward to the United States advancing a robust trade enforcement agenda to secure opportunities that depend on access to foreign markets, a key foundation of sustainable growth and prosperity.”
