The Future of Digital Trade Policy and the Role of the U.S. and UK

This is not a challenge for the U.S. alone. Other third countries find themselves in similar positions vis-à-vis GDPR.

As the policies of post-Brexit Britain have yet to be written, there is a great opportuniry for the United States and United Kingdom to further harmonize digital trade standards. 

Global powers are competing to shape the new economy and the future of digital trade. In recent years, three groups have emerged: liberalizers, regulators, and mercantilists.

Data localization, the mandate that data of a country’s citizens be stored within the borders of that country, is a thorny issue dividing policymakers across the globe, including in the United States and United Kingdom.

The United States and United Kingdom have been at the forefront of the FinTech industry, spawning hundreds of companies that help consumers and companies borrow, raise capital, lend, get insured, and pay online.

Among the many effects of Brexit is contemplating the staggering rise in the workload in UK customs run by Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC). Blockchains might hold a solution.

Four letters will have a profound impact on the future of global digital trade: GDPR or the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

Ecommerce is booming in the transatlantic market, growing some three times faster than overall trade. The United States and UK, along with China, are among the very largest ecommerce markets and also the most important cross-border ecommerce markets for each other: 70 percent of UK ecommerce shoppers use U.S. ecommerce sites, while 49 percent of Americans buy from UK sites. Behind these numbers are thousands of success stories: micro entrepreneurs and small businesses across America and the UK that have been discovered online by buyers across the Atlantic. With smart policies, the numbers of these transatlantic online exporters can grow into millions.

These technological changes are also critically shaping transatlantic and therefore global trade and supply chains. In particular, a rapidly growing share of trade flows between the U.S. and Europe is digital – exchange of digitized products and digitally delivered services; data among people, businesses, and machines; and physical products that have been bought and sold digitally on ecommerce platforms. An especially important share of the total transatlantic online trade happens between the United States and UK.