GLOBAL
PC: Trump’s “Agreements on Reciprocal Trade” (ARTs) Threaten Equitable Access to the Internet in Developing Countries – Public Citizen and Engage Media
Around the world, one in every three people has no reliable access to the internet. Unequal access to the internet creates digital divides that can limit civic participation, undermine access to education and healthcare, and deepen inequality. It can also reduce innovation, industrial growth, and economic output. Reducing digital divides is recognized as essential for progress on the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, as reaffirmed by the more recent Global Digital Compact, 2024.
However, this goal could be threatened by the controversial reciprocal trade agreements (ARTs) signed by the U.S. since February 2025. To date, the U.S. has signed ARTs with 10 countries — Malaysia, Cambodia, El Salvador, Argentina, Ecuador, Guatemala, Bangladesh, Taiwan, Jordan, and Indonesia — with framework deals in place with several others.
Hidden in most of these deals is a provision that requires these countries to refrain from using information and communication technology (ICT) suppliers that may “compromise the security, safeguards, and intellectual property of ICT infrastructure, including 5G, 6G, communication satellites, and undersea cables.” The ARTs with El Salvador, Guatemala, Indonesia, and Malaysia further require them to consult with the U.S. on which suppliers meet these standards (see the annexure for the relevant provisions).
For developing countries, trade agreements must promote a competitive global ICT hardware market, where they have a choice of global suppliers. This is particularly important given that developing nations are unlikely to wean themselves off foreign technological imports any time soon. That said, they must be able to adopt policy measures that would enable them to develop their domestic industries, including by taking measures to enable fledgling industries to get off the ground. Key aspects of this may lie in ensuring technology transfers to enable domestic capacity building, promoting the use of innovative decentralised ICT networks that could utilise more domestic hardware, and also by enhancing global development financing.
Allowing any foreign country the power to decide which ICT equipment a country can purchase may prove a short-sighted move which, in addition to eroding sovereignty, could affect the country’s quality of life, economic growth, and competitiveness. It should be left to each country to decide what ICT equipment best suits its security, budgetary, technical needs, and other requirements. Such a model would eliminate constraints on domestic policy space and support progress towards globally accepted public interest goals.
TWN: WTO: US & allies revive plurilateral E-com moratorium amid deadlock – D Ravi Kanth
The co-sponsors of the controversial “Joint Statement on the Moratorium on Customs Duties on Electronic Transmissions” on 1 September launched another proverbial salvo at the World Trade Organization in their bid to legitimize their plurilateral initiative for a permanent waiver on customs duties on electronic transmissions.
The move follows the failure to reach an agreement on the e-commerce moratorium – which would maintain the practice of not imposing customs duties on electronic transmissions – at the WTO’s 14th ministerial conference (MC14) in Yaounde, Cameroon, earlier this year.
This renewed push comes after Washington failed to secure consensus on its preferred four-year extension of the moratorium.
In what several trade envoys described as a display of frustration after MC14, the US built a coalition of willing countries and declared that it would proceed with a plurilateral arrangement – bypassing the core procedural requirements set out in paragraph 9 of Article X of the Marrakesh Agreement that established the WTO in 1995, according to several trade envoys.
Paragraph 9 of Article X of the Marrakesh Agreement explicitly states: “The Ministerial Conference, upon the request of the Members parties to a trade agreement, may decide exclusively by consensus to add that agreement to Annex 4. The Ministerial Conference, upon the request of the Members parties to a Plurilateral Trade Agreement, may decide to delete that Agreement from Annex 4.”
Yet on 26 May, the US and its allies chose to sidestep these stipulated conditions and instead unilaterally announced their arrangement – an act that several trade envoys, speaking on condition of anonymity, described as a flagrant violation of the WTO rules.
Worse still, according to trade envoys who declined to be named, in what is supposed to be a rules-based organization, the US, the EU, and several other developed countries now appear to be embracing a dangerous new playbook: turning the 166-member global trade body into “a lawless arena” where violations seemingly go unpunished.
WTO: WTO study explores the role of stablecoins in international trade
The WTO Secretariat launched a new publication on the role of stablecoins in supporting cross-border trade on 14 September on the sidelines of the WTO’s first World Trade and Tech Day. The report, prepared by the Economic Research and Statistics Division and the Trade in Services and Investment Division, examines the opportunities and challenges associated with the use of stablecoins in facilitating international trade, highlighting how they can accelerate cross-border payments and their potential to increase participation in the international trading system, especially for developing economies.
At the same time, the report acknowledges that the main use of stablecoins in trade is as a payments and settlement tool and does not substitute for trade finance. They do not replicate the credit, guarantee and risk-mitigation functions that underpin merchandise trade, and this distinction also means their relevance differs across trade in goods and trade in services.
The report also stresses that stablecoins may face significant regulatory, operational and trust related challenges that must be addressed before they can achieve broader adoption. As with many technological innovations, their potential will depend not only on their technical capabilities and interoperability across jurisdictions, but also on the existence of appropriate governance frameworks.
TWN: Civil society groups decry marginalization at WTO’s Public Forum – D Ravi Kanth
Global civil society groups, which primarily represent the interests of farmers, fishers, workers, and small producers from developing countries, seem to be largely sidelined at the World Trade Organization’s Public Forum 2026, with only about 5% of total sessions allocated to them.
In stark contrast, powerful lobbies such as the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), which is quietly driving a major “regime change” in the WTO rules, and the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) appear to dominate the Forum’s agenda, according to a source who asked to remain anonymous.
Amid these concerns, a coalition of global civil society groups, with many from developing countries, has sent a letter to the WTO Director-General, Ms Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, warning that “civil society is being systematically sidelined from the organization’s primary outreach event.”
The global coalition, Our World Is Not For Sale (OWINFS), highlighted the “dramatic drop in representation” as a continuation of “severe, ongoing barriers faced by civil society organizations (CSOs) at recent WTO Ministerial Conferences in Buenos Aires and Abu Dhabi.”
BotPopuli: The Road Not Taken? – Abhineet Nayyar
For one, over the last thirty years, the definition of ‘e-commerce’ has moved beyond straightforward digital advertising and now includes everything from social media platforms and online search engines and marketplaces to cloud computing services, seeing their highest demand at this moment. This expansion in the WPEC’s scope has turned some of its ‘free’ trade measures, like its customs duties moratorium on electronic transmissions, among others, into a flashpoint for trade negotiations. The recent Ministerial Conference (MC-14) and the General Assembly proceedings also indicate a growing challenge to the WTO’s legitimacy within this domain.
However, an ineffective and partisan trade regime has meant that the development of these co-dependent relationships has failed to materialize into egalitarian ones. On the contrary, the threat posed to the US by China’s industrial rise has nudged the former towards a policy of state capitalism that treats AI as a critical sector of national security and economic importance. Washington’s repeated sanctions against China, its Section 301 enforcement against Brazil, and its use of reciprocal tariffs to bring India to the negotiating table are clear examples of this tendency. The US-led Pax-Silica Agreement and China-led World Artificial Intelligence Cooperation Organization (WAICO) further reiterate an emerging fragmentation of the global political order.
As mentioned above, the US’s role in disrupting an open and competitive internet ecosystem is undoubtedly significant. Even before the “AI race” truly took off, the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) had been regularly objecting to developing countries’ efforts towards building local industries and markets. The National Trade Estimate Reports on Foreign Trade Barriers released by the USTR have constantly cited policies like digital services taxes, ex-ante competition regulation, national standardization requirements, and locally established digital public goods as unfair trade barriers that hinder the ability of American Big Tech enterprises.
ASIA
SydneyMorningHerald: ‘Loser country’: Republicans target Australia over news bargaining, tech regulation – Michael Koziol
Veteran Republican political activist Grover Norquist says the Australian government’s News Bargaining Incentive is a “big deal” for the Trump administration and Canberra should expect to be hit with a trade investigation and potential penalties shortly.
Republicans in Congress are now joining calls to take action against Australia, including congressman Scott Fitzgerald of Wisconsin, who introduced legislation to shield US tech companies from foreign regulations.
The policy has already attracted the ire of the Trump administration. The White House has labelled it “foreign extortion”, and US trade representative Jamieson Greer raised it with Trade Minister Don Farrell on a call nearly two weeks ago.
Norquist said concern about the policy went “very high” in the US government, and he expected a Section 301 trade investigation – a precursor to tariffs or other penalties on Australia – to be opened shortly.
AstanaTimes: Kazakhstan Set to Join Digital Cooperation Organization as Membership Expands to 24 Countries – Dana Omirgazy
Kazakhstan is set to join the Digital Cooperation Organization (DCO) as a new Member State, opening opportunities for greater cooperation in digital technologies, AI, innovation and digital trade.
The DCO, the world’s first standalone international organization dedicated to accelerating the inclusive and sustainable growth of the digital economy, announced on Aug. 28 that its Council had approved Kazakhstan’s candidature alongside seven other countries. The move could expand the DCO’s membership from 16 to 24 countries, representing approximately 980 million people, or around 12% of the global population, according to the DCO. Alongside Kazakhstan, the approved candidate countries are Albania, Azerbaijan, Kenya, Lebanon, Palestine, Syria and Zambia. Tajikistan will join the organization as an Associate Member. Kazakhstan’s prospective accession would mark the DCO’s first expansion into Central Asia and create a new regional axis for digital cooperation. The organization said the move reflects growing international interest in cooperation on digital policy, artificial intelligence, cross-border data flows, digital public infrastructure and digital skills.
NikkeiAsia: Japan seeks to host secretariat for CPTPP trade pact – Tetta Oike
Japan will offer to house a proposed permanent secretariat for the CPTPP, seeking to take the initiative in expanding the Asia-Pacific trade bloc by offering streamlined reviews of the growing number of membership applications.
The current parties to the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership could determine the location and role of the secretariat as early as a November ministerial meeting in Vietnam. The concept emerged around 2024, and members agreed last year to create an administrative support unit.
ITIF: Comments to Trade Competition Commission of Thailand Regarding Guidelines for Digital Platforms, Wholesale and Retail Businesses, and On-Demand Delivery Services
The industry group, Information Technology and Innovation Foundation has consistently pushed back against foreign digital sector regulations. This now extends to Thailand’s proposed regulation of platforms for competition related harms.
AFRICA
TheLancet: US–African data sharing agreements come under scrutiny – Paul Webster
Politicians and health experts have raised concerns about data protection in the health assistance agreements between the USA and several African countries. Paul Webster reports.
The Data Sharing Agreements (DSAs) included in recently negotiated health assistance Memorandums of Understanding (MOUs) between the USA and numerous African nations are attracting growing scrutiny.
On Aug 11, 2026, a group of eight US senators wrote to the US Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, seeking details around data protection and sensitive patient information within the DSAs, and whether data transfers will be consistent with US and African nations’ domestic data protection laws and the African Union’s Data Policy Framework.
The senators also asked whether any of the African health data obtained by US officials will be shared with “US-based third parties for any commercial purpose, including to train any artificial intelligence models”.
EUROPE
TechpolicyPress: How Europe Can Escape a Captured AI Ecosystem – Frederike Kaltheuner, Leevi Saari
Across this four-part series, we have argued that Europe’s AI ecosystem is subject to the gravitational pull of dominant US players. Even where European AI companies succeed, value tends to flow upstream to US AI labs and, ultimately, hyperscalers — firms that are simultaneously Europe’s indispensable infrastructure providers and its competitors.
We also showed how the response from Brussels has been to reach for the tools of the market: boosting supply by co-financing gigafactories or funding consortia to build models, channeling institutional savings into VC and growth equity, paired with deregulation and looser labor restrictions. The hope is that European AI companies, especially in health, manufacturing, defense, or legal, can replicate Silicon Valley’s flywheel dynamic, in which successful startups produce exits, exits recycle capital and experienced operators back into the ecosystem, and the ecosystem produces more startups.
The internal logic of all these interventions is the same:once Europe removes regulatory friction, unlocks domestic capital, and concentrates its efforts where it can plausibly win, Europe will become sovereign. In Europe’s response, AI’s trajectory is treated as a natural phenomenon: something Europe must respond to but cannot shape. A tsunami to brace for, or a wave to ride, but never a tide that could be turned.
What these interventions never explain is how they would fundamentally change the incentives in a structurally captured market: one in which start-ups like open-source model platform Hugging Face get bought by Nvidia, Germany’s AI DeepL partners with AWS, and neither consumers, businesses, nor the public sector can make meaningful choices at any layer of the stack.
To manage expectations: we do not have a silver bullet — a lucid, innovative policy option that solves these problems in one fell swoop without causing pain in the European tech environment. We wish we did. But in contrast to the policy scripts that deepen Europe’s dependence, we have four that encourage a different way of thinking:
NORTH AMERICA
Bloomberg: US Trade Talks Fuel Worry in Canada Over Tech and AI Rules – Nojoud Al Mallees
The US Trade Representative’s mention of “digital trade alignment” as part of an agreement with Prime Minister Mark Carney’s government is fueling concerns about Canada’s ability to set its own policy for technology companies.
The two countries appear to be on the cusp of a deal to reduce tariffs and address trade irritants. US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said in a social media post that it would include “comprehensive market access for all American goods, economic security commitments, digital trade alignment, and many important provisions.”
Former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government introduced a number of policies aimed at regulating global tech giants operating in Canada, which led to frictions with both the Biden and Trump administrations. While Carney has diverged with his predecessor on some of those policies, his government’s artificial intelligence plan vows to build up domestic digital infrastructure to reduce reliance on foreign cloud providers.
Politico: Trump denies US pushed Canada on French language – Gregory Svirnovskiy and Mickey Djuric
President Donald Trump on Tuesday morning denied that the White House had sought to interfere with the French language spoken in Quebec, as the two countries trade jabs over who is at fault for the trade war.
Carney on Saturday lamented what he called “threats to the French language” and “the Quebec culture,” telling reporters in French that they were “unacceptable” and helped spell “the end of this phase of the negotiations.”
But the president rejected those claims, posting on Truth Social: “I would never interfere with Canadians speaking French!”
With elections in Quebec taking place in October, White House officials say Carney is exaggerating the French language issue. Trump’s trade representative, Jamieson Greer, called the accusations “a funny, fake story,” in a televised CNBC interview on Monday. Greer said that the conflict is over a rule that forces “American tech companies to take their earnings and give a percentage to their competitors in Canada.”
NYTimes: Meta to Pay Up to $17.1 Billion in Landmark Settlement Over Social Media Addiction Claims – Cecilia Kang and Eli Tan
Meta on Wednesday reached a landmark settlement with 47 states, the District of Columbia and U.S. territories, agreeing to pay up to $17.1 billion in penalties and make major changes to its products over claims it endangered children with addictive social media platforms.
In a dramatic capitulation, the owner of Facebook and Instagram agreed to the financial penalties for violating federal child privacy and states’ consumer protection laws, the states announced. Meta also agreed to limit how long teenagers can spend on its platforms and to bans on features that stoke mental health issues, striking at the heart of the company’s business of engagement for advertising.
The settlement effectively ends a bellwether federal trial in the U.S. Northern District of California in Oakland, where California, Colorado, Kentucky and New Jersey were seeking roughly $200 billion over accusations that Meta harmed children. The states filed their agreement with Meta on Wednesday morning in that court, and Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers approved it.
Separately, Meta said on Wednesday that it settled with Texas for about $1 billion over similar allegations. The company still faces numerous other lawsuits from school districts and individuals, some of which are scheduled for trial in the coming months.
Politico: Another potential headache for US data centers — Trump tariffs – Ari Hawkins and Gabby Miller
The Trump administration is weighing a new round of sweeping tariffs on semiconductors, eight people familiar with discussions told POLITICO — despite warnings from tech companies that the move could doom U.S. hopes of dominating artificial intelligence.
One tariff approach under consideration would dramatically expand the number of tech products subject to the duties, hitting not just chips but potentially many of the goods made with them, such as laptops, gaming consoles or the servers that fill data centers, the people said. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick favors a structure that would tie foreign companies’ relief from the tariffs to investment in U.S. chip manufacturing to juice more domestic production, said four of the people.
LATIN AMERICA
WTO: New report highlights growth potential of digital trade in Latin America, Caribbean
A new report by the WTO Secretariat, the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and the World Bank examines how digital trade is transforming the way Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) economies connect to international markets and identifies opportunities to unlock further growth, inclusion and development for the region.
The report, entitled “Digital Trade in Latin America and the Caribbean: Connecting Markets, Powering Growth”, notes that, over the past two decades, exports of digitally delivered services have expanded fivefold in LAC economies, outpacing the growth of both goods and other services exports. At the same time, the region currently accounts for just 2% of world exports of digitally delivered services, pointing to considerable untapped growth potential.
The report estimates that further digitalization and new technologies, accompanied by stronger improvements in the policy environment of the relatively lower-performing economies, could raise the LAC region’s exports of digitally deliverable services by 4.5% per year on average.
The report examines the factors that play a critical role in shaping an economy’s participation in digital trade. These include digital infrastructure and connectivity, market openness for backbone inputs, regulatory policies, cross-border payments, logistics and customs processes, export promotion and firms’ capabilities, digital skills, and access to finance. Drawing on available information, the report assesses the position of LAC economies across these dimensions.
TechPolicyPress: Understanding Brazil’s $29.7 Million TikTok Fine Over Children’s Data – Tatiana Dias
For the first time, a major big tech company has been fined in Brazil for misuse of personal data. Brazil’s National Data Protection Authority (ANPD) imposed a $29.7 million sanction on ByteDance, TikTok’s parent company, for failing to protect children and adolescents.
Although ECA Digital, Brazil’s new child and adolescent protection law, has been in effect since March 2026, the case predates it, stemming from a proceeding that began in 2021. The ANPD investigated allegations that, despite TikTok stating the platform was unsuitable for users under 13, the company failed to prevent their access and improperly collected data from 8 million Brazilian children.
The fine in Brazil also came in the same week that the Department of Justice (DOJ) reached a $400 million settlement with TikTok for violating federal child privacy protection laws in the US. As in Brazil, the investigation concluded that TikTok and ByteDance, its China-based parent company, violated the law by allowing the collection of data from children under 13.
TechPolicyPress: Colombia is Preparing a Poor Copy of the EU’s AI Act – Daniel Arias Rivera
Bill 025 of 2026, currently before the Colombian House of Representatives, seeks to regulate AI and ensure its ethical and responsible development. The bill applies to developers, providers and deployers of AI systems and establishes specific duties for systems that may significantly affect fundamental rights or other protected interests. These include risk and impact assessments, transparency, human oversight and monitoring, alongside public oversight responsibilities and sanctions for non-compliance.
There is only one problem. The country does not need another ambitious law that looks good on paper but ignores the technological, institutional and economic conditions in which it would have to operate.
The bill’s purpose is legitimate. Colombia needs rules for a technology that is already transforming work, education, public administration, security and the exercise of fundamental rights. At first sight, the bill follows a familiar international approach. It adopts risk-based regulation, establishes obligations for certain AI systems and proposes mechanisms for impact assessment, oversight and governance.
Much of this resembles the architecture of the European Union’s Artificial Intelligence Act. But there is a fundamental difference between learning from the European model and attempting to reproduce it.
A small Colombian company may rely on a model developed by a foreign company. It may have no access to the model’s training data, architecture, evaluation procedures or internal safeguards. It can deploy the technology, but it cannot meaningfully govern it. This reveals one of the great asymmetries of today’s technological order. Countries in the Global South increasingly consume technological infrastructures developed by companies concentrated in a handful of countries. They may regulate how those systems are used without having meaningful control over the systems themselves.
Colombia could therefore end up imposing the heaviest regulatory obligations on those who are closest to the consequences of AI, rather than on those who possess the greatest capacity to shape the technology. This is where the debate over technological dependency and the coloniality of data becomes relevant. The issue is not simply who owns the data. It is also who controls the infrastructure, the models, the computing power and the knowledge required to transform data into technological and economic power. A genuinely sovereign AI policy should confront that distribution of power rather than simply reproduce regulatory categories developed elsewhere.
