Big Tech trying to ‘weaponize’ U.S. trade talks, Democrats warn
A group of prominent Democratic lawmakers is urging the Biden administration to reject efforts by Big Tech to influence U.S. trade talks, warning that industry groups are trying to co-opt negotiations to evade regulations both at home and abroad.
In a letter Friday to the Commerce Department and the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR), Sen. Elizabeth Warren (Mass.) and other lawmakers sounded the alarm on what they called a push to “tie Congress’s and regulators’ hands” in its ongoing negotiations over Indo-Pacific trade.
If successful, the tech giants may be able to dodge rules targeting anti-competitive conduct in the sector by claiming those policies constitute “illegal trade discrimination,” the lawmakers wrote in the letter, shared exclusively with The Technology 202.