Sec. 6291. Sense of the Senate on digital trade and the digital economy
1,447 words·~7 min read·
/bill/118/hr/2670/eas/section-6291·A research copy — for the controlling text, always check the official state or federal source. Not legal advice.
Congress makes the following findings: Over half of the world’s population, totaling more than 5,000,000,000 people, use the internet. The digital economy encompasses the economic and social activity from billions of online connections among people, businesses, devices, and data as a result of the internet, mobile technology, and the internet of things. The Bureau of Economic Analysis found that the digital economy contributed nearly 10.3 percent of United States gross domestic product and supported 8,000,000 United States jobs in 2020.
The digital sector added 1,400,000 new jobs between 2019 and 2022. United States jobs supported by the digital economy have sustained annual wage growth at a rate of 5.9 percent since 2010, as compared to a 4.2 percent for all jobs. In 2021, United States exports of digital services surpassed $594,000,000,000, accounting for more than half of all United States services exports and generating a digital services trade surplus for the United States of $262,300,000,000. Digital trade bolsters the digital economy by enabling the sale of goods on the internet and the supply of online services across borders and depends on the free flow of data across borders to promote commerce, manufacturing, and innovation.
Digital trade has become increasingly vital to United States workers and businesses of all sizes, including the countless small and medium-sized enterprises that use digital technology, data flows, and e-commerce to export goods and services across the world. Digital trade has advanced entrepreneurship opportunities for women, people of color, and individuals from otherwise underrepresented backgrounds and enabled the formation of innovative start-ups. International supply chains are becoming increasingly digitized and data driven and businesses in a variety of industries, such as construction, healthcare, transportation, and aerospace, invested heavily in digital supply chain technologies in 2020.
United States Trade Representative Katherine Tai said, [T]here is no bright line separating digital trade from the digital economy—or the . traditional economy for that matter. Nearly every aspect of our economy has been digitized to some degree. Industries outside of the technology sector, such as manufacturing and agriculture, are integrating digital technology into their businesses in order to increase efficiency, improve safety, reach new customers, and remain globally competitive.
The increasing reliance on digital technologies has modernized legacy processes, accelerated workflows, increased access to information and services, and strengthened security in a variety of industries, leading to better health, environmental, and safety outcomes. The COVID–19 pandemic has led to increased uptake and reliance on digital technologies, data flows, and e-commerce. Ninety percent of adults in the United States say that the internet has been essential or important for them personally during the COVID–19 pandemic.
United States families, workers, and business owners have seen how vital access to the internet has been to daily life, as work, education, medicine, and communication with family and friends have shifted increasingly online. Many individuals and families, especially in rural and Tribal communities, struggle to participate in the digital economy because of a lack of access to a reliable internet connection. New developments in technology must be deployed with consideration to the unique access challenges of rural, urban underserved, and vulnerable communities.
Digital trade has the power to help level the playing field and uplift those in traditionally unrepresented or underrepresented communities. Countries have negotiated international rules governing digital trade in various bilateral and plurilateral agreements, but those rules remain fragmented, and no multilateral agreement on digital trade exists within the World Trade Organization. The United States, through free trade agreements or other digital agreements, has been a leader in developing a set of rules and standards on digital governance and e-commerce that has helped allies and partners of the United States unlock the full economic and social potential of digital trade.
Congress recognizes the need for agreements on digital trade, as indicated by its support for a robust digital trade chapter in the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement. Other countries are operating under their own digital rules, some of which are contrary to democratic values shared by the United States and many allies and partners of the United States. Those countries are attempting to advance their own digital rules on a global scale. Examples of the plethora of nontariff barriers to digital trade that have emerged around the globe include— overly restrictive data localization requirements and limitations on cross border data flows that do not achieve legitimate public policy objectives; intellectual property rights infringement; policies that make market access contingent on forced technology transfers or voluntary transfers subject to coercive terms; web filtering; economic espionage; cybercrime exposure; and government-directed theft of trade secrets.
Certain countries are pursuing or have implemented digital policies that unfairly discriminate against innovative United States technology companies and United States workers that create and deliver digital products and services. The Government of the People’s Republic of China is currently advancing a model for digital governance and the digital economy domestically and abroad through its Digital Silk Road Initiative that permits censorship, surveillance, human and worker rights abuses, forced technology transfers, and data flow restrictions at the expense of human and worker rights, privacy, the free flow of data, and an open internet.
The 2022 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices of the Department of State highlighted significant human rights issues committed by the People’s Republic of China in the digital realm, including arbitrary interference with privacy including pervasive and intrusive technical surveillance and monitoring including the use of COVID–19 tracking apps for nonpublic-health purposes; punishment of family members for offenses allegedly committed by an individual; serious restrictions on free expression and media, including physical attacks on and criminal prosecution of journalists, lawyers, writers, bloggers, dissidents, petitioners, and others; serious restrictions on internet freedom, including site blocking .
The United States discourages digital authoritarianism, including practices that undermine human and worker rights and result in other social and economic coercion. Allies and trading partners of the United States in the Indo-Pacific region have urged the United States to deepen economic engagement in the region by negotiating rules on digital trade and technology standards. The digital economy has provided new opportunities for economic development, entrepreneurship, and growth in developing countries around the world.
Negotiating strong digital trade principles and commitments with allies and partners across the globe enables the United States to unite like-minded economies around common standards and ensure that principles of democracy, rule of law, freedom of speech, human and worker rights, privacy, and a free and open internet are at the very core of digital governance. United States leadership and substantive engagement is necessary to ensure that global digital rules reflect United States values so that workers are treated fairly, small businesses can compete and win in the global economy, and consumers are guaranteed the right to privacy and security.
The United States supports rules that reduce digital trade barriers, promote free expression and the free flow of information, enhance privacy protections, protect sensitive information, defend human and worker rights, prohibit forced technology transfer, and promote digitally enabled commerce. The United States supports efforts to cooperate with allies and trading partners to mitigate the risks of cyberattacks, address potentially illegal or deceptive business activities online, promote financial inclusion and digital workforce skills, and develop rules to govern the use of artificial intelligence and other emerging and future technologies.
It is the sense of the Senate that— the United States should negotiate strong, inclusive, forward-looking, and enforceable rules on digital trade and the digital economy with like-minded countries as part of a broader trade and economic strategy to address digital barriers and ensure that the United States values of democracy, rule of law, freedom of speech, human and worker rights, privacy, and a free and open internet are at the very core of the digital world and advanced technology; in conducting such negotiations, the United States must— pursue digital trade rules that— serve the best interests of workers, consumers, and small and medium-sized enterprises; empower United States workers; fuel wage growth; and lead to materially positive economic outcomes for all people in the United States; ensure that any future agreement prevents the adoption of non-democratic, coercive, or overly restrictive policies that would be obstacles to a free and open internet and harm the ability of the e-commerce marketplace to continue to grow and thrive; coordinate sufficient trade-related assistance to ensure that developing countries can improve their capacity and benefit from increased digital trade; and consult closely with all relevant stakeholders, including workers, consumers, small and medium-sized enterprises, civil society groups, and human rights advocates; and with respect to any negotiations for an agreement facilitating digital trade, the United States Trade Representative and the heads of other relevant Federal agencies must consult closely and on a timely basis with Congress.