Republican Lawmakers Call for Tech Lobby Be Blocked From Indo-Pacific Trade Input

Emily Birnbaum
·2 min read

(Bloomberg) -- A group of Republican lawmakers is raising concerns about the biggest tech companies’ influence over the new Indo-Pacific trade framework, marking one of the first signs that the concern is bipartisan.

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The lawmakers, led by Senators JD Vance of Ohio and Josh Hawley of Missouri, in a letter sent on Thursday, urged US trade officials to reject efforts by companies including Amazon.com Inc. and Alphabet Inc.’s Google to shape the 14-nation economic initiative, known as the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity, or IPEF. They specifically oppose any language limiting other countries from passing antitrust legislation aimed at paring back the big tech companies’ dominance.

“The administration must ensure that it does not propose or adopt text in IPEF that binds the United States to competition policies that Congress may soon reject,” they wrote in the letter, which was reviewed by Bloomberg News. Representatives Ken Buck of Colorado and Matt Gaetz of Florida also signed on.

A growing number of lawmakers are concerned that language in the US proposal related to digital trade could undermine artificial intelligence, privacy and competition regulations. Congress is considering pieces of antitrust legislation that would target the power of Amazon, Google, Apple Inc. and Meta Platforms Inc.

Democratic lawmakers, including Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, have raised similar issues with the tech industry’s lobbying on the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework.

Warren’s office earlier this week released emails showing US trade officials have solicited the advice of lobbyists for Amazon, Google and other major tech companies to help craft the new trade framework.

A new round of talks on the Indo-Pacific framework is set to begin next week in Singapore. The initiative represents the most significant American economic engagement since former President Donald Trump pulled out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership in 2017. Participants include Japan, India, South Korea, Australia and Indonesia.

“With antitrust reform gaining momentum on Capitol Hill, the industry has apparently prevailed on the administration to internationalize the issue, in derogation of Congress’s legislative authority to shape domestic competition policy,” the Republican lawmakers wrote in the letter.

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