US presses WTO to keep the global internet tariff-free forever

Brendan Murray / Bloomberg03-17

The WTO estimates that digitally delivered services exports hit US$4.8 trillion in 2024, about double the level reached in 2017.(March 17): The US is pushing to make permanent an international ban on ...

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The prohibition’s wording was vague by design back then but it’s understood to mean economic activity that’s now ubiquitous — from online purchases and social media to data transfers and video calls.\nThe moratorium has divided nations for nearly three decades as economies including Brazil, India and South Africa argued they wanted to preserve domestic policy options rather than rubber-stamp it. Behind that vague justification are concerns including the hit to customs revenue as online services replace goods purchases, US Big Tech’s growing market share, and data sovereignty and security issues more recently tied to the boom of artificial intelligence (AI).\nA draft WTO statement of support for the moratorium circulated in late February included the US, Singapore, Argentina, Japan, South Korea, Mexico and 13 others. The Trump administration wants it to be permanent, making it the most consequential issue facing the Geneva-based organisation at its 14th biennial ministerial conference March 26-29 in Cameroon, known as MC14.\n“Now is the time, in our view, for the WTO to act and for the ministers to make the ecommerce moratorium permanent,” said Ambassador Joseph Barloon, US President Donald Trump’s point person at the WTO. “Businesses need that stability we think to really further digital trade, and just having that go from MC to MC to MC does not send the right signal. So that’s a key priority. ”\nIn an interview with Bloomberg News on Friday, Barloon said the US currently has 22 co-sponsors.\nThe European Union’s long-time support for a permanent extension remains in effect, according to European Commission spokesman Olof Gill.\nBut heading into MC14 in Cameroon’s capital of Yaounde, South Africa’s stance remains unclear and India has raised concerns.\nBarloon said the traditional holdouts in the moratorium debates have a chance to send the world a message that the WTO can evolve with the internet age.\nCountries have an opportunity to “send a signal to the world that the WTO can actually adapt, the WTO can actually become more relevant for today’s economy,” he said. “So we’re hopeful that those other members that traditionally have been more hesitant to agreeing to the moratorium, will agree to it making it permanent.”\n\nThe stakes are high and rising for companies ranging from Spotify Technology SA and Alphabet Inc’s Google to Amazon.com Inc, and also for governments that need revenue where they operate. \nThe WTO estimates that digitally delivered services exports hit US$4.8 trillion in 2024, about double the level reached in 2017. European and North American firms were the source of about 70% of that total. \nTaxation and regulation of digital services have for years sparked disagreement between Washington and Brussels. The Trump administration has complained about unfair treatment of US companies and threatened to seek redress through so-called Section 301 investigations like the kind the White House started launching last week.\nYet customs duties on online trade remain an unsettled issue. \nGlobal business organisations view the WTO moratorium as essential to provide certainty and widen access to digital innovations and efficiencies to emerging economies. Another timely upside is keeping the internet free of the kinds of protectionist moves and retaliations involving tariffs on merchandise trade over the past decade. \nWhile another moratorium extension is likely, Washington’s push for permanence may be a tough sell in a political environment where trade tensions are high and the US is imposing tariffs on most of its major trading partners.\n‘Mood music’\n“We’ve seen, particularly in the past two or three months in Geneva, a real shift in the mood music around the moratorium,” said Andrew Wilson, deputy secretary general for policy at the International Chamber of Commerce. \n“Now the vibe we get is very much that it’s unlikely that the US proposal for a permanent prohibition will pass, but there could be a compromise where instead of the usual two-year extension,” countries could renew it for four years, he said.\nWithout an extension in Yaounde, the moratorium sunsets at the end of March, conceivably clearing the way for customs officials to collect duties on digital services of foreign companies.\nMost observers, though, see that as a remote possibility in the near term given how technically challenging it would be to measure transactions that zip invisibly across borders over fiber optic lines, mobile networks and subsea cables. Doing so would also likely invite a backlash from the US.\nFor WTO members, failure to extend the moratorium would be a blow to director general Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala’s agenda and another setback for the forum’s attempts to write the rules of international trade by consensus.\nWhile the Trump administrations has criticised the effectiveness of the WTO, keeping the global internet free of tariffs is one area where it sees value in multilateralism.\n“The time has come to make this moratorium, which benefits all the members, to make it permanent. And we’re hopeful that we’ll be able to achieve that,” Barloon said. “Frankly we think the notion of just kicking the can down the road is not helpful.”  \nOnce a regular holdout in approving extensions of the moratorium, Indonesia has recently pledged its support to do so in its trade deal framework signed with the US in February. That was seen by some observers as a breakthrough.\nIndia’s role\nSecuring another extension — either permanent, or for another two years at least — likely hinges on India’s backing just as it did at the WTO’s last ministerial conference in Abu Dhabi in 2024.\nThe US and India are currently negotiating the fine print in a trade deal that was outlined in a White House statement on Feb 9, and digital pledges are part of that agreement.\nIn it, India “committed to negotiate a robust set of bilateral digital trade rules that address discriminatory or burdensome practices and other barriers to digital trade.” That was less specific about its stance on customs duties on electronic transmissions than a earlier statement which underwent revisions, adding to the uncertainty about India’s position.\n“I still doubt there will be agreement on a permanent moratorium due to the need for consensus, and the fact that many other countries still oppose it,” said Martina Ferracane, an associate professor of international digital trade at Teesside University in the UK. “There might be space for a temporary renewal.”\nUploaded by Liza Shireen Koshy","kind":"highlight","is_publish_news":true,"is_publish_highlight":false,"is_publish_live":false,"is_publish_wemedia":null,"editions":null,"column":"","sentiment":"0","news_tag":"","news_rank":0,"symbols":[],"gpt_button":0,"need_auth":false,"code":"91000000","status":"200"},"commentList":[],"isCommentEnd":true,"newsSizeData":{"likeSize":0,"commentSize":0,"repostSize":0,"favoriteSize":0,"likeStatus":false,"favoriteStatus":false},"APP":{"userAgent":"Mozilla/5.0 AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko; compatible; ClaudeBot/1.0; +claudebot@anthropic.com)","isDev":false,"isTTM":true,"tenantId":"TBGLOBAL","deviceId":"web-server-community-laohu8-v3","version":"4.36.2","shortVersion":"4.36.2","platform":"web","vendor":"web","appName":"ttm","isIOS":false,"isAndroid":false,"isTiger":false,"isTHS":false,"isWeiXin":false,"isWeiXinMini":false,"isWeiBo":false,"isQQ":false,"isBaiduSwan":false,"isBaiduBox":false,"isDingTalk":false,"isToutiao":false,"isOnePlus":false,"isHuaWei":false,"isXiaomi":false,"isXiaomiWebView":false,"isOppo":false,"isVivo":false,"isSamsung":false,"isMobile":false},"href":"/m/news/2620534477","isCrawlerRequest":true}