WASHINGTON—Last week in Geneva, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) announced it was withdrawing from its traditional approach to digital trade rules. This move is a serious affront to U.S. businesses, harms American workers, and jeopardizes our ability to compete globally.
USTR’s Katherine Tai announced from Switzerland that the U.S. will pull out of its World Trade Organization (WTO) e-commerce negotiations on free cross-border data flows, data localization and source code review. The Biden administration is thus abandoning all the U.S. businesses, innovators and workers that benefit from digital trade.
“Unfortunately, this is just the latest attack by the Biden administration against America’s world-leading tech industry,” said NetChoice President & CEO Steve DelBianco. “It follows meetings that Biden’s FTC and DOJ have held with European regulators to help them kneecap American businesses. At this critical time in global affairs, the U.S. and Europe should not be conspiring against American tech. We should be cooperating with Europe and other freedom-loving nations to promote tech innovation that serves our shared goal to stay ahead of China.”
The move has rightfully faced a bipartisan outcry from Congress. NetChoice hopes Biden and his regulators will stop abandoning U.S. interests, both at home and abroad, through frivolous rulemakings like this.
Please contact Krista Chavez at press@netchoice.org with inquiries.