The U.S. International Trade Commission (USITC) has released its economic report on the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP). The report, “Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement: Likely Impact on the U.S. Economy and on Specific Industry Sectors,” states that exports of computer services are expected to increase under TPP – particularly to the five TPP countries that do not have a trade agreement with the U.S.
TPP is an international trade agreement negotiated among 12 Pacific Rim countries, including the United States, intended to create new trade and investment opportunities with other partner countries for all sectors of the U.S. economy. TPP would also establish a model for cooperation with other Asia-Pacific economies to eliminate trade and investment barriers and improve competitiveness across the region.
The USITC report notes that TPP is the first trade agreement that addresses key concerns of the tech community, such as cross-border data flows and localization requirements. The agreement ensures that firms and individuals can transmit data freely across borders, unless there is a legitimate public policy objective; it also bars member countries from requiring businesses to set up computing and/or data storage facilities as a requisite to providing services into the country. The USITC report states that TPP “ … would remove almost all significant barriers to trade and investment in computer services and deter the establishment of future barriers among the parties.”
CompTIA supports the adoption of TPP, and we are actively working to encourage Congress to approve this historic trade agreement.
