Findings; sense of Congress

(a) Findings Congress makes the following findings: (1) The Bureau of Economic Analysis found that the digital economy contributed roughly 10 percent of United States gross domestic product and supported approximately 8,900,000 United States jobs in 2022. (2) In 2023, United States exports of digital services surpassed $655,000,000,000, accounting for more than half of all United States services exports and generating a digital services trade surplus for the United States of roughly $266,800,000,000. (3) Digital trade bolsters the economy by enabling the sale of goods and the supply of services across borders. (4) Digital trade has become increasingly vital to United States workers and businesses of all sizes, including manufacturers, farmers, industrial facilities, service suppliers, and countless small and medium-sized enterprises that use digital technology to produce and export goods and services across the world. (5) Digital trade is crucial for the global competitiveness of the United States, as United States industry relies on free and secure cross-border data flows to deploy cutting-edge technology essential to innovation and productivity. (6) Digital innovation has provided new opportunities for economic development, entrepreneurship, and growth in developing countries around the world. (7) Countries have negotiated international rules governing digital trade in various bilateral and plurilateral agreements, but those rules remain fragmented. (8) The United States, through free trade agreements and trade negotiations, has been a leader in developing rules and standards governing digital trade and electronic commerce that have helped the United States and partners of the United States unlock the economic potential of digital innovation. (9) Certain countries, including the People’s Republic of China, are advancing discriminatory digital policies that undermine United States companies and workers by enabling censorship, surveillance, forced technology transfers, and data flow restrictions at the expense of human rights, the rule of law, privacy, and an open internet. (b) Sense of Congress It is the sense of Congress that— (1) there is a need for agreements on digital trade, as Congress recognized by its support for a robust digital trade chapter in the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, which has been of critical importance to all sectors of the economy; (2) negotiating strong digital trade principles and commitments with countries across the globe enables the United States to unite like-minded countries around common standards and ensure that principles of democracy, rule of law, freedom of speech, human and worker rights, privacy, and a free and open internet are at the very core of digital governance; and (3) even as domestic statutes and regulations governing the digital economy continue to develop and evolve, the United States should cooperate with its allies and trading partners to advance global digital trade rules that reflect United States interests and values.