Washington, D.C. - Today, United States Trade Representative Michael Froman formally requested that the U.S. International Trade Commission (“ITC”) conduct three additional investigations on digital trade. These investigations will update and extend the Commission’s two prior reports on digital trade, Digital Trade in the U.S. and Global Economics, Part I (July 2013) and Part II (August 2014).
“Data networks and Internet-enabled technologies are increasing the competitiveness of every sector of the U.S. economy, from manufacturing to agriculture to healthcare,” said U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman. “The ITC’s prior work on the role digital trade has played in the U.S. and global economy shed much light on the extent to which digitization is increasing the efficiency and productivity of U.S. companies, as well as transforming global trade flows. I have asked the ITC to build upon this work to better understand the economic impacts of this transformation, as well as the potential benefits of eliminating barriers to digital trade in certain business-to-business and business-to-consumer technologies.”
USTR’s newly created Digital Trade Working Group worked closely with the ITC to structure these investigations. Other recent activity of the Digital Trade Working Group is memorialized in a letter from Deputy USTR Robert Holleyman to USTR Froman released today, along with the Digital 2 Dozen summary of USTR's digital trade priorities.
