GLOBAL
Grain: Big Tech’s digital trade agenda is a danger for farmers and food systems
The Big Tech companies and their billionaire owners are taking over the media, backing far-right political parties, providing support to militaries committing war crimes, and collaborating with governments to curtail human rights.5 And they have an agenda for the food system too. Big Tech companies are converging with the largest agribusiness corporations, vacuuming up the data of small-scale food producers, workers and consumers with barely any oversight or limitations and then using that data against their interests.
The world’s largest seed, pesticide and fertiliser companies have access to a constant stream of data from farms stretching across tens of millions of hectares– from Brazil to China– by way of digital apps installed on the smart phones and tractors of farmers. The information is stored on the clouds of Big Tech companies, like Microsoft’s Azure and Amazon’s AWS.
Companies can also sell data they collect on farmers to third-parties who may use that information in ways that harms the interests of farmers. This is what happened with the Bayer-Microsoft collaboration in India, where farmer data was sold to food companies who then used the data to squeeze farmers on prices.9
WTTL: No Deal on WTO E-Commerce Moratorium
The new chair of the World Trade Organization’s General Council said last week that her consultations with members since the failed 14th Ministerial Conference have produced no progress on resolving the impasse over the e-commerce moratorium or WTO reform.
During the General Council meeting on follow-up to MC14, held in Yaoundé, Cameroon, in March, Ambassador Clare Kelly of New Zealand said she would continue consulting members until the next GC meeting in July on the two issues: the e-commerce moratorium and WTO reform, according to participants familiar with the proceedings.
The chair’s plain statement suggested that Brazil is maintaining its position against extending the moratorium beyond two years — the practice since 1998 — while Türkiye, the other country that opposed the moratorium, said at the GC meeting that it would agree to a four-year extension.
At the meeting, the United States said it had waited until the first GC meeting after MC14 for an outcome on the e-commerce moratorium. With the impasse continuing, Washington will now pursue a plurilateral initiative with like-minded countries, people familiar with the developments said.
Bilaterals.org: Ranked: Top 12 countries with digital trade agreements – Julia Wendling, Jennifer West
Digital trade now powers a growing share of the global economy. It covers cross-border data flows, e-commerce, digital services, and online payments. As digital commerce expands, governments are moving quickly to set the rules that govern how it operates.
This visualization, created in partnership with the Hinrich Foundation, shows which countries are leading digital trade negotiations, using data from Digital Policy Alert. It also highlights the rapid rise of digital trade agreements worldwide.
A small group of countries now leads the push to shape trade rules. Singapore ranks first with 26 agreements either completed or under negotiation. The UAE follows with 21 agreements, while the EU has 20.
Countries have sharply increased digital trade activity in recent years. Since 2001, governments worldwide have signed 165 digital trade agreements. More than half of the world’s 2,587 digital commerce commitments came in the last four years alone.
HumanRightsWatch: Algorithms of Exploitation – Rights Abuses in the Gig Economy and the Global Fight For Change
Across the world, hundreds of millions of people find work through digital labor platforms — driving passengers, delivering food and packages, cleaning homes, or completing jobs arranged through an app.
The companies behind these apps often organize and control this work by using algorithms to assign tasks, set pay, evaluate performance, and even fire workers. They track workers’ movements in real time, reward high ratings and fast completion times, and prompt workers to respond on demand.
For the companies that built these systems, the model promises high returns and low risk. But for workers, digital platforms have rewritten the rules of work, shifting the cost and risk of doing business onto the workers themselves while limiting their control over earnings and working conditions.
The rules governing platform work are drawing increased scrutiny and are now the subject of debate. Governments, workers, and companies are negotiating the first global standards on platform work at the International Labour Organization, while national governments are beginning to set their own guardrails.
Many of the largest platforms are multinational corporations operating across dozens of countries. Uber, for example, is headquartered in the United States and operates in more than 70 countries. Delivery Hero, headquartered in Germany, operates under a network of subsidiaries, including HungerStation and Talabat, across the Middle East and North Africa.
VanderbiltPolicyAccelerator: ‘Bossware’ Is Spying on Workers and Sharing Their Data – Stephanie T Nguyen
…workers are now subjected to surveillance at almost every step in the job market—from hiring and onboarding to evaluation for promotion and post-employment. Workers have little visibility and even less control over how their information is managed and leveraged. This emerging reality raises urgent questions about how workplace data is collected, shared, and repurposed—along with the mechanisms and actors that drive this surveillance.
Given the rise of the surveillance economy, we assembled an interdisciplinary team collaborating across four universities to investigate how workplace monitoring platforms—sometimes called “bossware”—collect worker data and whether that data is also collected by or shared to third party data brokers. Our report examines nine widely used workplace monitoring platforms—Apploye, Deputy, Desklog, Hubstaff, Monitask, Buddy Punch, Time Doctor 2, Vericlock, and When I Work—tracking how each app collects and transmits worker data in practice.
CESR: Known battles & emerging debates: what do the latest UNTC submissions reveal? – María Emilia Mamberti
As negotiations for a landmark UN Framework Convention on International Tax Cooperation enter a critical phase, the latest round of member state submissions expose the issues that have defined this process from the start and the new battlegrounds emerging ahead of August’s fifth session in New York. The divide between Global North and Global South remains sharp, with developed countries pushing for a high-level, non-binding instrument that defers to existing OECD frameworks, while developing nations demand a treaty with real teeth and genuine reallocation of taxing rights.
ASIA
StraitsWatch: Mahathir lodges police report against Malaysia PM Anwar over US trade deal
Dr Mahathir Mohamad has lodged a police report against Malaysia’s Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim regarding the Agreement on Reciprocal Trade (ART) between Malaysia and the United States.
According to Sinar Harian, the former prime minister claimed that Datuk Seri Anwar’s actions were taken without the full mandate of the entities meant to represent the Federation of Malaysia.
Dr Mahathir said approval from all four parties was not obtained, rendering the agreement unconstitutional.
“The agreement document is 400 pages long but has never been disclosed to the public. There are many clauses stating that our country’s powers are handed over to the United States, requiring us to refer actions to them and allowing them to determine what can or cannot be done,” he said.
AlJazeera: India, US strike critical minerals deal: What’s in it, why does it matter? – Sarah Shamim
India and the United States have signed a framework agreement to secure supplies of critical minerals and rare earths, including their mining and processing, according to the Indian Ministry of External Affairs and the US embassy in India.
The Indian foreign ministry said the framework seeks to deepen New Delhi and Washington’s cooperation across the critical minerals and rare earths supply chain, including mining, processing, recycling and related investments.
An Indian statement referred to a critical minerals conference in Washington, DC, in February that Jaishankar attended. In the same month, India joined the US‑led Pax Silica initiative on secure semiconductor and AI supply chains.
The US embassy also said a bilateral deal was reached on Tuesday. “Through this framework, the United States and India will engage in international efforts to protect sensitive supply chains from coercive market practices and reduce our collective vulnerability to single-source monopolies,” an embassy statement said.
The statements do not expand on specific terms of the framework deal or how the cooperation would take place.
Xinhua: Vietnamese PM calls for fair, balanced reciprocal trade agreement with U.S.
Vietnamese Prime Minister Le Minh Hung has called for the early conclusion of a fair and balanced reciprocal trade agreement with the United States, the Vietnam News Agency reported on Wednesday.
The prime minister made the remarks during a meeting with Rick Switzer, deputy U.S. trade representative. The two sides pledged to maintain close coordination to accelerate negotiations and finalize the bilateral trade deal at an early date, according to the report.
AFRICA
BusinessInsiderAfrica: Kenya court clears way for $1.6 billion US-backed health deal despite privacy concerns
Kenya’s Court of Appeal has temporarily cleared the way for the implementation of a controversial $1.6 billion health partnership with the United States, handing President William Ruto’s administration a major victory in a legal battle over healthcare funding, constitutional oversight and data privacy.
A three-judge bench suspended earlier High Court conservatory orders that had blocked implementation of the framework pending the hearing of an appeal.
The framework, signed in Washington in December 2025, seeks to strengthen Kenya’s response to HIV, malaria, tuberculosis and emerging infectious diseases while helping the country build a more self-reliant healthcare system.
The dispute was triggered by a petition filed by Busia Senator Okiya Omtatah, who questioned whether the agreement should be treated as an international treaty requiring parliamentary approval under Kenya’s Constitution.
Mr Omtatah also argued that the government failed to conduct sufficient public participation before signing the framework and raised concerns over fiscal accountability, sovereignty and protection of citizens’ medical data.
Consumer rights group Cofek separately warned that transferring Kenyan health and epidemiological data abroad could expose citizens to irreversible privacy risks if the information were misused outside Kenya’s jurisdiction.
RestofWorld: Pushing back from Big Tech: Africa’s hard road to AI sovereignty
Africa’s four biggest tech economies have each drafted artificial intelligence strategies admitting they depend too heavily on Google, Microsoft, Nvidia, and Meta for infrastructure and want more control over the terms.
Nigeria, Egypt, and Kenya have released draft AI policies since January 2025 that identify dependence on U.S. tech companies as a threat to security and survival. South Africa reached the same conclusion in a draft it published and withdrew in April this year after the AI tools used to help write it generated fake citations.
Most African nations rely on U.S. companies for computing power, funding, and expertise, AI and policy experts who advise these governments told Rest of World. They are now pushing for data sovereignty, local talent, and better terms from foreign providers, the experts said.
PC: Public Comment: African Trade Program Must Put People’s Wellbeing Before Corporate Interests
Public Citizen, along with the labor, environmental, consumer, faith, and family farm groups that make up the Citizens Trade Campaign (CTC) national coalition, submitted recommendations for the record in response to the U.S. Trade Representative’s (USTR) request for public comment on the modernization of the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA).
AGOA is a long-running program authorized by Congress which gives sub-Saharan African countries preferential (tariff-free) access to the U.S. market for certain goods, if the countries comply with the eligibility criteria.
The CTC’s comment urges the eligibility criteria be updated to include strong labor, environmental and human rights standards. It also cautions against the changes to eligibility criteria that large corporate interests will likely seek: such as extreme intellectual property protections for pharmaceuticals, restrictions on regulation of Big Tech, and special access to critical minerals sites for U.S. mining companies.
Earthworks: Demanding minerals in exchange for lives in Zambia (part 1) – Raquel Dominguez
A trade deal proposed by the United States could end life-saving humanitarian aid to Zambia unless the United States gets access to minerals, which are useful for renewable energy, military technology, and more. Like the other so-called critical minerals “deals” that the Trump administration is signing, this agreement would be extortion, not foreign policy.
On 16 March, The New York Times broke the story that the Trump administration was considering withholding foreign aid–specifically HIV treatment and tuberculosis and malaria medications. More than 1 million Zambians rely on these medications. According to a draft U.S. State Department memo, the administration is considering cutting off decades of life-saving medical aid unless the Zambian government gives the United States more access to their minerals.
Earthworks: Trump’s deals extort trade partners for mining company profits. There is a better way – Raquel Dominguez
Equitable and sustainable trade policy requires acknowledging that the US government, historically and regularly, prioritizes companies that take advantage of extraction-affected communities, including in Global North countries. The status quo remains fundamentally unjust. In building a better system, governments must, among other things, prioritize Free, Prior, and Informed Consent for Indigenous Peoples; community consultation; best available technologies; low- and zero-waste plans; and enforceable high labor, environmental, and governance standards. We must demand reparations for chattel slavery, colonialism, and the climate crisis, and ensure newly-generated wealth stays within the communities and countries with whom the U.S. trades.
People in the DRC, Indonesia, and everywhere else have the right to healthy, dignified lives. They have the right to governments responsive to their interests. Advocates in the Global North must commit to solidarity with mining-affected communities and their organizations, like those in the DRC, Indonesia, and elsewhere are fighting for that future and standing up to irresponsible mining that threatens their homes and families. As the Trump administration intensifies that threat, people and organizations in the United States must speak up for our shared future too.
EUROPE
TheGuardian: How the plastic bottle cap became a parable for the value of EU regulation – Alberto Alemanno
The bottle cap story is a parable for a larger fight playing out at the highest levels of European politics. One side claims that EU rules are the problem: a self-imposed burden of standards on business that slow Europe down while the US and China race ahead. The other says those rules are not a handicap but a source of power, the only instrument a continent without a single government possesses to shape its own economic future while protecting its people and the planet.
At present, the first camp is winning. The political coalition behind it is broad, stretching from Brussels to Berlin, Warsaw and Rome. The argument sounds on the surface entirely reasonable. From that diagnosis follows a programme of “simplification” championed by the European Commission led by Ursula von der Leyen: cuts to environmental protections, digital rules, consumer and food safety requirements. Standards that Europe spent two decades building are being rolled back, all in the name of competitiveness.
There is one problem at the foundation of all this. The diagnosis is at best questionable and at worst wrong.
Dismantling Europe’s regulatory framework does not merely fail to deliver growth. It surrenders something that Europe has spent decades building. Consider what the targeted rules actually do. When the EU forced Apple to open its App Store to rival app developers and payment routes, Apple complied – at least in Europe. This reveals how EU digital market rules are not costly tick-box exercises, but the actual reason European consumers now have choices – in apps, in payment and platforms – that consumers in the US still lack. The wider European rulebook is also why Google, Meta and Amazon face limits on how they combine, harvest and monetise Europeans’ data. Weaken them, and US platforms – and their tech billionaires – gain even greater control over Europe’s markets and people.
Politico: US, UK clash with France over children’s online safety at G7 meet – Océane Herrero and Joseph Bambridge
France is clashing with the U.S. and U.K. over how strongly the G7 should commit governments to protecting children online, as the countries rush to agree to a joint declaration on tech policy, four people familiar with the negotiations, all granted anonymity to discuss the sensitive talks, told POLITICO.
Digital ministers for the G7 are due to convene on Friday for a meeting in Paris, and the participating countries are trying to put together a declaration to illustrate the seven countries’ alignment on tech policy goals. In April, France said it wanted to use its G7 presidency to put together a “common protection framework” for children online.
But one French official said that the U.S. and U.K. were aligned in trying to “water down” commitments to online safety and children’s protection in the document.
NORTH AMERICA
NationalPost: CRTC to require online streamers to pay 15% of annual revenues to support Canadian content – Jordan Growling
The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) announced on Thursday it will require online streamers to pay 15 per cent of their annual Canadian revenues towards Canadian and Indigenous content.
The decision was made following consultations on how to implement the Online Streaming Act; legislation passed in 2023 that obliges Netflix and other streaming services to financially support Canadian content and promote it on their platforms.
U.S. tech giants such as Apple, Amazon, Spotify and the Motion Picture Association-Canada, which represents the largest American studios, are challenging the order in Canadian federal court.
A decision is expected soon, with the payments paused in the meantime.
Reuters: US to keep tariffs on USMCA countries, issues with Canada ‘significant’, Greer says – David Lawder and David Shepardson
The Trump administration intends to maintain tariffs on imports from Mexico and Canada, U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said on Tuesday as theU.S. launches negotiations to revamp the North American free trade pact.
The U.S. has “significant” trade issues with Canada, Greer told a Council on Foreign Relations event in Washington ahead of bilateral negotiations with Mexico that exclude the northern U.S. neighbor.
“The U.S. is going to have tariffs,” Greer said. “I mean, even with somebody like Mexico, or other countries that are in our own hemisphere, we’re going to have tariffs as long as we have a giant trade deficit.”
His comments that the six-year-old U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement will not continue as a tariff-free trade pact echo comments he made privately last month to industry executives in Mexico – that auto and steel tariffs will remain in place under the revamped USMCA.
U.S. and Mexican negotiators are due to meet this week in Mexico City to launch the first formal negotiating rounds, covering revised regional rules of origin and economic security.
PC: Statement for the Record: The President’s 2026 Trade Policy Agenda
For many years, U.S. trade policy rewarded companies for moving production to countries with lower wages, weaker labor protections, and weaker environmental rules. Those policies helped drive factory closures, diminish workers’ bargaining power, and increase inequality, while also contributing to environmental harm and migration pressures abroad. President Trump rose to power in part by promising to fix these problems.
The president’s trade agenda, released on March 2, 2026, makes several bold claims, focusing on the need to rebuild American industry. While in itself a laudable goal, the lack of substance in the policy indicates that this administration lacks a coherent plan to achieve any of its stated aims, including re-shoring manufacturing or advancing the interests of American workers.
The 2026 Trade Policy Agenda identifies the Agreements on Reciprocal Trade (ART) as the centerpiece of this administration’s trade strategy. In his opening statement, Ambassador Greer boasted about concluding nine ARTs together with nine framework deals. However, the ARTs were based on illegally imposed tariffs, making it unsurprising that countries have already called into question the legality of these deals, which may not survive the test of time.
Targeting foreign digital regulations makes consumers of digital services the world over less safe, reduces the ability for smaller enterprises to compete in the digital economy, and concentrates power in the hands of Big Tech companies.
We caution the administration against conflating the profitability of Big Tech companies with the overall health of the U.S. economy or citizens’ economic well-being. Actions such as opposing foreign taxation of Big Tech companies, opposing regulatory action against anti-competitive and anti-privacy practices of Big Tech companies and so on, may appear to benefit the U.S. by boosting profits of Big Tech, but will ultimately reduce trust in U.S. technology companies and spur the development of local alternatives.
In addition, pursuing a deregulatory agenda abroad also harms U.S. consumers and small businesses. The last few years have seen increased debate over domestic regulation of technology in the U.S., particularly as the known and potential harms of digital platforms, AI systems, and unregulated data flows have become more apparent. Several domestic laws and policies — aimed at promoting a level playing field in the digital ecosystem, protecting user data, ensuring the safety of children online, and protecting vulnerable communities against harms caused by AI systems — are similar to the foreign laws targeted by the ARTs. It is, therefore, short-sighted and a clear abandonment of the national interest to attack the types of robust digital governance measures that should be adopted domestically.
Rep.DeLauro: DeLauro Introduces Resolution Outlining a Democratic, Worker-Centered Vision for Trade Policy
Today,Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro (CT-03) and 28 co-sponsors introduced the Fair Trade for Working Families Resolution, which outlines new principles for international trade that would prioritize the interests of working people over the profits of multinational corporations.
“America is overdue for a worker-centered approach to trade that delivers benefits to everyone—not just those at the very top. My Fair Trade for Working Families Resolution outlines ten key priorities including strong labor, wage, and environmental standards, clear Made in America requirements, robust enforcement mechanisms to combat trade law violations, and guardrails against AI-driven offshoring.”
The resolution is endorsed by the United Steelworkers (USW), United Auto Workers (UAW), AFL-CIO, International Association of Machinists (IAM), Citizens Trade Campaign (CTC), Rethink Trade, Public Citizen, Sierra Club, NETWORK Lobby for Catholic Social Justice, the National Family Farm Coalition, and BlueGreen Alliance. A document with quotes from endorsing groups in support of the resolution can be found here.
Politico: The Man Trying to Make Trump’s Tariffs Go on Forever – Daniel Desrochers
Jamieson Greer is a trade lawyer. He is a well-respected trade lawyer. He was chosen by President Donald Trump to be the country’s top trade lawyer: the U.S. Trade Representative.
“We don’t want the tariffs to go on forever,” said Rep. John James (R-Mich.). “We want reciprocal tariffs. We want fair trade.”
Greer stares off at a machine in the distance. He’s heard a similar line from tariff-skittish Republicans before — that the tariffs are a tool, a way to get countries to open markets and expand exports, and then they will come down. But those reassurances contradict his daily reality: His boss does want tariffs to go on forever. And he’s made it Greer’s job to ensure they do.
Here’s what he’s doing now: In March, he launched investigations into 96 countries over alleged unfair trade practices. Greer hopes to conclude those investigations by the summer, potentially providing the White House with a chance to reimpose tariffs and the flexibility to change the rates if countries do not respond to Trump’s demands.
LATIN AMERICA
Valor: Brazil defends multilateralism but prepares to ‘play alone’ – Rafael Vazquez
International trade is going through its most disruptive moment since the 1990s, when the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact opened the way for globalization and the removal of trade barriers. That shift ushered in a brief period in history when global economic growth was less affected by geopolitical interests than it usually had been—and than it is likely to be in the coming years.
In this scenario, which experts around the world have described as a “crisis of multilateralism” and of the system designed by the Western bloc after World War II, Brazil has positioned itself as a staunch defender of the multilateral order. But practical actions signal that the country is also preparing for a new international game that no one yet knows exactly how to play.
Election results could change the course of foreign policy. However, experts interviewed by Valor believe Itamaraty’s diplomatic pragmatism is likely to prevail in decisions involving foreign trade, regardless of the government in power.
