As the global leader in digital trade, the United States has a big stake in ensuring that international rules facilitating its continued expansion are put in place.

The Obama Administration’s bold agenda to establish these rules across Europe and the Asia-Pacific did not yield lasting success, with the failure of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) negotiations and the Trump Administration’s withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). Nonetheless, the key elements of US digital trade policy enjoy bipartisan policy support, providing a promising basis for the next Democratic administration to re-engage with Europe, our biggest digital trading partner.

Part 1 of this issue brief explains why international rules are needed to protect and facilitate digital trade. Part 2 describes the turbulent past decade in transatlantic trade relations and the growing importance of US digital trade with Europe. Part 3 explains why the US government and the European Union (EU), during TTIP negotiations, were unable to agree on a digital trade chapter, including a key provision guaranteeing the free flow of data. Finally, Part 4 suggests how two parallel sets of trade negotiations beginning early this year — between the EU and the United Kingdom (UK) and between the United States and the UK — may help a future US Administration end the transatlantic stand-off over digital trade.

To view the full report at Progressive Policy Institute, please click here

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Some recent PTAs contain ambitious provisions to reduce regulatory barriers in digital trade and facilitate cross-border data flows. However, most PTAs fail to holistically support the five pillars of digital trade integration, and are particularly deficient in supporting digital development and inclusion, incorporating adequate digital trade facilitation measures, and facilitating meaningful international regulatory cooperation. This paper provides various policy recommendations to address such deficiencies. This paper also contains a case study of digital trade integration in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). It argues that the ASEAN framework currently functions as a weak form of digital trade integration, focusing mainly on political goodwill and high-level cooperation. Although the ASEAN Members are committed to enhancing regulatory cooperation and strengthening their institutions on electronic commerce, the development asymmetry coupled with the conflicting policy preferences of ASEAN Members remains a key obstacle.

Andrew D. Mitchell and Neha Mishra (2020), “Digital Trade Integration In Preferential Trade Agreements”, ARTNeT Working Paper Series, No. 191, May 2020, Bangkok, ESCAP.

Available at http://artnet.unescap.org 

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