The Computer & Communications Industry Association (CCIA) has submitted its comments to the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) in response to the annual request for identifying trade barriers affecting U.S. companies aiming to expand internationally. The USTR uses these responses to compile its National Trade Estimates (NTE) report, which offers a detailed overview of trade barriers by country.
In conjunction with their submission, CCIA released a two-page summary highlighting key points from their comments. They also updated their digital trade barrier visualization on their website and published additional documents that detail regional trade barriers across the European Union, Asia & the Pacific, the Middle East and Africa, the Americas, and the United Kingdom.
The CCIA emphasized that there are increasing obstacles to digital trade due to government actions favoring domestic companies over U.S. suppliers. These measures include discriminatory taxes, exclusionary regulations, and forced revenue transfers between U.S. and local firms. Such barriers have negatively impacted U.S. businesses not only in traditionally challenging markets like China and Russia but also among allies and other significant trading partners.
Specific issues identified by CCIA include discriminatory digital services taxes, data localization mandates undermining U.S. cloud providers, obligatory payments imposed on U.S. online service providers by influential local groups, surveillance demands, censorship practices, emerging restrictions on AI-enabled services and technologies, as well as new limitations specifically targeting U.S. companies.
CCIA’s comments urge the USTR to tackle these digital trade barriers because the tech industry is a crucial exporter for the United States, having generated a $256 billion trade surplus in digitally-deliverable services in 2023.
Jonathan McHale, Vice President of Digital Trade at CCIA stated: “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.”
He further added: “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.”
McHale concluded by expressing optimism about future developments: “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.”
