Next steps for transatlantic trade and tech diplomacy

POLITICO’s weekly transatlantic tech newsletter for global technology elites and political influencers.
By MARK SCOTT
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IT’S THURSDAY. AND THIS IS DIGITAL BRIDGE. I’m Mark Scott, POLITICO’s chief technology correspondent, and will be downing tools next week for a short vacation. You’ll be in the hands of my trusted colleagues. Be nice. Until then, this goes out to the grammar pedants among us.
Let’s get to it, shall we?
— The EU-U.S. Trade and Technology Council is in search of a legacy — and its potential survival if Donald Trump wins the White House.
— Creating disinformation is a lot easier than combating it. A new report from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development shows why.
— The U.S. Supreme Court has become the de facto digital rulemaking body in the United States.
WHEN EUROPEAN AND AMERICAN OFFICIALS gather on the outskirts of Brussels on April 4-5 for the latest iteration of the EU-U.S. Trade and Technology Council (TTC), expect a lot of gallows humor. With elections in both the European Union and the United States this year, no one really knows if these twice-yearly summits will survive the pending political upheaval. That has led to a rush for legacy among tech and trade officials as they shoehorn in everything — and the kitchen sink — into next month’s communiqué. The goal: demonstrate the transatlantic relationship is stronger than ever and, importantly, show that whatever happens in the upcoming elections, Brussels and Washington will find a way to work with each other.
So what to expect? The draft deliverables are still doing the rounds (if you want to chat, you know where to find me). But with two weeks to go before the summit in Leuven — more on that city next week — early smoke signals are appearing about what may be announced. We’ll almost certainly see joint methodologies and definitions for artificial intelligence. We’ll almost certainly see commitments to great transatlantic ties on sustainable trade and green technologies. We’ll almost certainly see more EU-U.S. funding for telecommunications and cybersecurity projects in developing economies. We’ll almost certainly see language about the need to protect human rights defenders globally. My hope: commitments to push back against Chinese and Russian foreign interference and to improve access for outsiders to social media data.
So far, so good. Well … kinda. Since officials like U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and European Commission trade czar Valdis Dombrovskis gathered in Washington in January for the previous TTC event, nothing much has changed. That event was viewed more as a bump in the road to concrete action to be announced in April. But with the days counting down, officials are scrambling to throw in as many potential outcomes as possible to show how these summits have led to meaningful outcomes. It’s a clear sign of how dysfunctional the current setup is when you have two summits within four months of each other, everyone’s schedule is beholden to Blinken’s other geopolitical commitments, and success is viewed through the lens of a photo op between the key players that also include U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, Europe’s digital chief Margrethe Vestager and U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai.
But let’s focus on what everyone knows — but is unwilling to say out loud. If Donald Trump wins the upcoming U.S. presidential election (currently, he’s slightly ahead of incumbent President Joe Biden), all bets are off. The MAGA candidate has threatened to impose a blanket 10 percent tariff on all imported goods. He previously used the U.S. State Department to cajole EU countries to take a more hawkish line on Huawei, the Chinese telecom giant. He didn’t fill scores of U.S. federal agency roles during his first term, leaving allies — and not just the Europeans — adrift because there was literally no one to talk to. When Brussels floated the TTC concept to Washington in the latter days of the Trump administration, for instance, those pleas went mostly unheard. You’d be brave to bet that approach would change if he wins the White House again later this year.
Current U.S. officials push back against that depiction — not surprisingly, given they work for Biden. The U.S. isn’t going anywhere, they argue. Plus, the last four years under a Democratic president have also seen a move toward U.S. subsidies for national industries and a similarly tough stance on China, albeit via more diplomatic language than what was used under Trump. Europe, too, has shifted more toward the U.S. national security approach on tech and trade, so any potential changing of the guard in November won’t be as radical as many may think. The likelihood of Ursula von der Leyen, the current European Commission president, securing a second term also helps with continuity, according to EU officials.
I get a sense current policymakers only half-believe that theory. In the weeks leading up to next month’s TTC summit, there’s been a concerted effort to “institutionalize” the links on trade and tech between Brussels and Washington — including discussions about formalizing the relationship via some form of watered-down trade meeting. It’s true: EU and U.S. officials are friendlier now than they were during Trump’s term, although those ties haven’t eased difficult negotiations around steel tariffs and so-called critical raw materials that aren’t technically part of the upcoming summit. As onetime U.S. Senator Arthur Vandenberg once quipped: “Politics stops at the water’s edge.” To suggest Republicans and Democrats significantly differ, geopolitically, on core diplomatic issues is to underestimate how much — even in a polarized Washington — questions of national security and national interest still supersede party lines.
So into this confusing, politically unclear reality, EU and U.S. leaders will wade into what may (and it’s a may) be the final TTC summit — ever. Back in 2021, when this was all first announced, the summits and associated working groups were intended to bolster transatlantic ties and avoid potential trade and tech battles. For the most part, those goals have succeeded. But, looking ahead, the future of both the TTC and the Brussels-Washington relationship looks as uncertain as ever, mostly because — inevitably — domestic politics (cough, Trump, cough) take over. That’s the reality officials won’t easily concede when they gather in `Belgium in a couple of weeks. But that doesn’t mean it’s not true.
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IN THE DARKER CORNERS OF THE INTERWEBS, there’s a well-entrenched conspiracy theory that goes a little something like this: A cabal of deepstate political elites and Big Tech social media companies are working, hand in glove, to throttle free speech on the internet; subjugate the masses via a combination of government propaganda and content regulation; and promote a “woke” philosophy that undermines “Western values” in the name of feminism/multicultralism/fill-in-your-own-blank-ism. You’ll find scores of acolytes for this conspiracy theory, from the U.S. to Finland, including radicalized groups from both sides of the left-right political divide and those who believe in the “Censorship Industrial Complex.“
I couldn’t help but think of that when reading a new report from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), a Paris-based group of mostly rich countries. If you’re looking for evidence of the deepstate at work, I thought, you can’t get more deepstate-y than a government-funded bureaucracy of mostly unknown officials behind a study titled “Facts not Fakes: Tackling Disinformation, Strengthening Information Integrity.” The recommendations include: boosting transparency about what happens on social media and supporting independent media; increasing digital literacy and awareness of disinformation among local populations; and strengthening regulatory oversight, potentially via new rules that force social media companies to act on potentially illegal content like hate speech and child sexual abuse material.
“We can all have our view on what is true and what is not true,” Elsa Pilichowski, the OECD’s director for public governance, who oversaw the report, told me. “What we need to have is people who receive information (online) and who know that this information has not been manipulated for the wrong reasons.” For Pilichowski, that includes explaining to people how social media works, outlining what different sources are saying about any particular topic, and — potentially — promoting government rules to boost transparency, accountability and responsibility on social media. “The idea is not to get rid of disinformation,” she added, “but that people will just disregard that disinformation.”
That all sounds wonderfully wonky — and aligns with how many governments are now addressing the disinformation threat. If only people were better aware of how they are being manipulated, goes this theory, then they would make better choices about what they believe. Such a philosophy is baked into the EU’s new social media rules, known as the Digital Services Act (DSA). It’s also part of separate online safety regimes popping up in the United Kingdom, Australia and, potentially, Canada. “The (EU’s) framework, as it is today, is the best we can think of,” Pilichowski said, referring to Brussels’ rules that are very much a work in progress. “We need this to be to be enlarged. Not necessarily the DSA, itself. But something that looks like that to be enlarged to other countries.”
And that brings me back to the deepstate conspiracy theory. What officials misunderstand is this isn’t about a lack of awareness or education. It’s not really about increased transparency and accountability for social media. And it’s certainly not about better government oversight over arguably one of the most important means for political discourse. All of that is true and must be addressed, often via new regulations. But underneath this noise is a vocal minority of sophisticated, technically literate and politically aware internet users who fundamentally believe any form of online regulation is anathema to their fundamental rights. Faced with such heart-felt (but, inevitably, misguided) feelings, you’re not going to win over those skeptics with claims that they just need to understand the problem better.
This goes well beyond entrenched conspiracies. If the last decade has shown us anything, it’s that disinformation, foreign interference and online political activism always stay one step ahead of government responses. As soon as officials figure out one problem, the fake news merchants have moved on to their next strategy. Throw on top of that mess an increasingly politically astute, radicalized group of internet users, and you have the potential for serious offline harm. That’s what the OECD report (and others like it) fails to recognize. Yes, we need greater transparency, accountability and responsibility for social media platforms. But you can’t “policy” yourself out of what is, essentially, a deeply emotional concern about alleged government overreach.
IF YOU NEEDED ANOTHER EXAMPLE OF WHY U.S. digital policymaking is broken, you don’t have to look further than the U.S. Supreme Court this week. On Monday, the justices heard arguments on whether it was acceptable for the federal government to communicate with tech companies about removing potentially harmful posts and misinformation on social media. That follows a separate hearing last month on social media laws passed in Florida and Texas that forbid platforms from deciding what content they will allow to be published online.
Based on the most recent hearings, the Supreme Court (not known for its digital acumen) pushed back on efforts to shield potentially harmful posts from content moderation and accusations the federal government infringed the U.S. First Amendment with its ties to Big Tech companies. But with Congress mostly absent from answering these questions, the country’s top court has become the de facto decider on digital policy issues. Not something, I would argue, the Founding Fathers had in mind.
Last year, the court similarly ruled in two linked cases (Gonzalez v. Google and Twitter v. Taamneh) that similarly questioned social media’s role in the spreading of potentially harmful content. The judges ruled to maintain liability exemptions for the firms. More digitally focused cases will follow until Congress again fulfills its role as a functioning branch of the U.S. government.
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NOW THAT THE COUNCIL OF EUROPE (not to be confused with the European Council or the Council of the EU, obvs) has approved its artificial intelligence framework, it’s time to focus on Thomas Schneider. He’s director of international affairs at the Swiss Federal Office of Communications — and chair of the group’s committee on AI.
Not everyone is happy with arguably the first legally binding international AI treaty. Countries can decide whether, or not, to include oversight of domestic countries and there are exemptions for national security. Still, it’s the culmination of years of negotiations.
“I don’t expect us to solve all the problems right now,” Schneider told me last year, “neither with the (Council of Europe’s AI) convention, nor the EU with its AI Act, nor with whatever the U.S. will decide or other countries will decide on AI.”
“Data brokers’ sale of Americans’ most sensitive information to our foreign adversaries is wrong and damages our national security,” said Maria Cantwell, a prominent U.S. Democratic senator from Washington state, after the U.S. House of Representatives voted to restrict companies from selling Americans’ information to countries like China and Russia.
— The French government’s AI Commission published 25 recommendations on how the country can take advantage of the emerging technology, including investments in computing power and a focus on promoting the French language. Read here and here.
— Australia’s eSafety Commissioner sent legal demands to several tech companies to outline how they combat online content related to terrorism and extremism. More here.
— Brandon Silverman, the co-founder of CrowdTangle — a much-used data analytics tool that will soon be shut down by Meta — gives his personal reflections on what happens next.
— Most people are still unsure how generative AI will affect their lives, with those polled in this U.S. survey by the AI Policy Institute mostly on the fence when it comes to the technology’s risks and rewards.
— The existing technological gap between the U.S. and the EU can not be attributed to the lack of American laws and the proliferation of European digital regulation, argues Anu Bradford for the Northwestern University Law Review.
— George Washington University’s Institute for Data, Democracy and Politics put together a handy cheatsheet for how outsiders can access social media data, globally, via Europe’s new content rules.
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