Services and digital trade top negotiation priorities, industry groups tell subcommittee
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Summary
The Coalition of Services Industries urged negotiators to prioritize cross-border data flows, prohibitions on data localization, and a permanent ban on customs duties on electronic transmissions, citing the large economic role of services exports.
Christine Bliss, president of the Coalition of Services Industries, told the Trade Subcommittee that services and digital trade disciplines should be central to future U.S. trade agreements because services underpin manufacturing, agriculture and overall competitiveness.
Bliss said U.S. cross-border services exports exceeded $1 trillion in 2023, generated a services trade surplus near $280 billion, and that services delivered through foreign offices accounted for roughly $2.1 trillion in revenues. "Services are increasingly delivered through digital means, which means we need trade frameworks not only for services, but for digital as well," she said.
Her priorities for negotiators included: strong rules to promote cross-border data flows, a prohibition on forced data localization, protections for source code and algorithms, a ban on customs duties on electronic transmissions, and nondiscrimination for U.S. digital content. She noted the OECD has documented a 25% increase in trade restrictiveness for services in digital trade since 2013 and urged that USMCA and the U.S.–Japan digital trade commitments be used as building blocks.
Bliss also recommended pressing trading partners to avoid discriminatory online platform regulation and to extend the WTO moratorium on customs duties for electronic transmissions. She singled out Canada, Mexico, Korea and India as priority markets where services and digital barriers remain significant and said the U.S. should pursue both bilateral and plurilateral approaches with like-minded partners to set high standards.
Committee members asked how digital rules strengthen manufacturing competitiveness; Bliss replied that data flows underpin design, robotics, logistics, finance and after-sales services, and that strong digital trade rules therefore support reshoring and competitiveness.
No formal committee action was taken at the hearing; members indicated they would consider the Coalition’s priorities as they draft negotiating objectives and statutory language for future trade talks.
