Starting April 2025, the Trump administration began imposing a range of unilateral tariffs on its trade partners across the world. Although advertised as a protectionist measure to revive the American manufacturing sector, the policy intervention has acted more as a bargaining chip for the United States Trade Representative (USTR) to force other countries to reopen negotiations on trade issues. By threatening the Global Majority with economic uncertainty, the measures aim to secure better bargaining positions for the US and its industrial machine.

While the April tariffs were put on a temporary pause shortly after the announcement, the intended signal was well received. Within weeks, trade representatives from most Global Majority countries were rushing to the US, counter-proposing deals more favorable to Washington and its interests. As it turns out, digital trade emerged as one such prominent arena for global realpolitik. Hoping to seek regulatory concessions in Europe, India, and Brazil, as well as deter China’s rapidly growing technological influence, Big Tech has mobilized around Trump’s tariffs.

Take, for example, the USTR’s 2025 National Trade Estimate Report on Foreign Trade Barriers—a key document in these negotiations. Out of the 14 types of barriers listed in the report, one entire category is on ‘electronic commerce/digital trade barriers’. These include, among others, barriers to cross-border data flows and discriminatory practices affecting trade in digital products. Categories of ‘investment barriers’ and ‘anti-competitive practices’, too, account for other issues Big Tech is currently facing, such as technology transfer requirements and fairness and due process concerns.

To better understand how the US’s desire to consolidate its geoeconomic position will impact developing countries, I spoke to a few researchers closely studying the majority world’s relationship with global trade. Interspersed with their inputs, what follows is an exploration of how the US’s control over digital supply chains not only limits sovereignty for much of the world but further risks entrenching the power of Big Tech entities.

“Do we have a deal?”

The response of the global majority world to the US demands for digital trade relaxations has remained fairly individualized and unorganized. China, admittedly an outlier for its sheer technological competence vis-à-vis the US, has faced the significant brunt of Trump’s tariffs. According to recent reports, though, the two countries have reached a deal that fixes tariffs on Chinese imports to 55%, nearly a third of their highest value since April. In return, however, Beijing is likely to remove export controls on its rare-earth minerals, thereby allowing foreign companies access to these critical resources.

Deals proposed by other South Asian countries present a similar picture, albeit with key contextual distinctions. India, for example, has been working with the US on developing a Bilateral Trade Agreement (BTA) since February, titled ‘US-India COMPACT (Catalyzing Opportunities for Military Partnership, Accelerated Commerce & Technology) for the 21st Century’. Most tellingly, the BTA reportedly calls for “identifying constraints to financing, building, powering, and connecting large-scale US-origin AI infrastructure in India.” Following the announcement of tariffs, the two countries plan to close one tranche of this BTA before the tariff pause ends, although reports suggest that New Delhi will continue to look for certain concessions, like on issues of technology transfer.

The tariff announcement has forced Mexico to strengthen its commitment to the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), including a chapter on digital trade that limits civil liability and protects proprietary source code.

Alternatively, countries like Indonesia have rushed to allay the USTR; within a week of the Liberation Day announcements, the finance minister of Indonesia pledged to pursue a strategy of ‘deregulation’ and ‘simplification’. According to Rachmi Hertanti, a researcher at the Transnational Institute, the government also used this opportunity “to open negotiation avenues with the US to be able to win national interests,” including the development of Indonesia’s digital sector and semiconductor industry. To obtain these gains, Hertanti points out, the government is willing to “revise the Local Content Obligation policy […] to facilitate US investment in Indonesia,” particularly through the creation of data centers in the country.

Responses by Latin American countries, too, display a similar form of fragmentation, complicated further by the region’s tumultuous history with the US and the growing local presence of Chinese capital. For example, the tariff announcement has forced Mexico to strengthen its commitment to the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), including a chapter on digital trade that limits civil liability and protects proprietary source code. Similarly, Argentina, which was already trying to strike a bilateral deal with Washington, is reportedly reviewing 16 policy areas to address the USTR’s concerns, including ICT regulations and intellectual property rights. In contrast, Brazil has leveraged its strong relationship with China and the MERCOSUR bloc to resist making any immediate deals with the US, although reports suggest that the country’s data center industry may be up for grabs.

Although these examples represent only a part of the majority world, they certainly fit the USTR’s intentions for the future, where global digital trade is liberalized, privatized, and deregulated to favor Big Tech.

Although these examples represent only a part of the majority world, they certainly fit the USTR’s intentions for the future, where global digital trade is liberalized, privatized, and deregulated to favor Big Tech. According to Yulo Lao, a Tax, Trade, and Digitalisation coordinator at Public Services International, by legitimizing and legalizing measures like blocking digital tax policies, allowing tech companies to operate without physical entities, and free flow and storage of data, many of these trade deals ensure value extraction without any fiscal accountability.

In fact, as Sofia Scasserra, a researcher with the Transnational Institute, points out, “for many smaller governments [in Latin America], building digital sovereignty is a time-consuming and resource-intensive task.” Instead, she adds, “when threatened with wide-ranging tariff and non-tariff interventions, many of them are likely to deprioritize digital trade requirements for concessions in more nationally important topics, such as food security and education.”

Winners by monopolization

Unfortunately, neglecting the goals of digital sovereignty—through tax breaks, liberalizing IP rules, and letting go of key technical infrastructure—is also a losing game for countries in the majority world, albeit a gradual one. As per Vahini Naidu, Programme Coordinator at The South Centre, developing countries face the risk of undermining their own regulatory autonomy as they try to secure their access to the US market. “This institutionalization of digital trade,” Naidu points out, “reflects a broader shift from negotiation to surveillance and retaliation,” especially for countries whose regulations may be seen as unfavorable to the commercial interests of US-based technology firms.

Take, for example, the question of antitrust, best seen in USTR’s recurring focus on anti-competitive practices as a trade barrier in its report, including for India. Indeed, the country’s antitrust authority has launched a series of investigations and imposed a range of fines to curb the Big Tech dominance over the last few years, including Amazon, Google, and Meta in its scope. Just last year, inspired by Europe’s Digital Markets Act (DMA), India’s Ministry of Corporate Affairs had also released a draft Digital Competition Bill to curb anticompetitive conduct in digital markets. Not only is the DMA explicitly listed as a trade barrier in the USTR’s report, but India’s effort at a binding legislation has also been fiercely opposed by the Big Tech lobby.

According to Scasserra, privatization of communally-owned data and restrictions on technology transfers, two key pillars of the USTR’s trade policy, are significant challenges facing the digital sovereignty of the majority world today.

However, the relationship between digital trade relaxations and Big Tech’s global hegemony runs much deeper than merely countering antitrust action. According to Scasserra, privatization of communally-owned data and restrictions on technology transfers, two key pillars of the USTR’s trade policy, are significant challenges facing the digital sovereignty of the majority world today.

Unregulated cross-border data flows, for starters, have been a long-term demand of free market enthusiasts, including Big Tech entities. And unsurprisingly so; as the recent boom in LLM-based AI technologies shows, big data analytics can generate significant investment returns. Unfortunately, as long as existing digital supply chains are controlled by a handful of US-based corporate entities, any additional liberalization of data flows will only enable further market concentration and upward transfer of wealth. Furthermore, without adequate privacy-ensuring guardrails and effective digital inclusion, people from the majority world are likely to be left vulnerable to cyberattacks and online fraud.

By demanding that the global majority world—which already faces an uphill market battle against entrenched Silicon Valley behemoths—share its citizens’ data without any restrictions, matters are only made worse by gate-keeping the technologies that the same data facilitates. More importantly, unconditional denial of technology transfers also further harms the goals of the ‘Responsible AI’ movement. For critical use cases, policing or healthcare, for example, the use of AI technologies in the global majority world is becoming increasingly popular. Often built through transnational partnerships, some technology transfers in such cases are integral to making these autonomous systems more transparent and accountable.

What can be done?

In her classic writing, The Accumulation of Capital (1913), Rosa Luxemburg uncovered the deep ties between capitalist ambitions of value extraction and the infrastructure that connects the world. Although written in the context of the railway systems and their role in the expansion of imperialism, her diagnosis of the problem is as relevant when it comes to digitally networked infrastructures that currently dominate our lives. As citizens’ data— effectively an extension of their selves—becomes the next commodity for capitalist exploitation, the control that Big Tech and the US government seek to establish over our digital rails demands fierce and collective resistance by the global majority world. Although such an effort has hitherto struggled to gain momentum, Trump’s tariffs provide a powerful reason and a growing opportunity for governments from the majority world to rethink their relationships with the imperial core.

Firstly, the US’s alienation of the World Trade Organization (WTO), a multilateral trading system that it had, itself, set up to benefit the global interests of capital, is nearly complete with these recent rounds of reciprocal tariffs. As Scasserra puts it, “From their falling quotas at the WTO and their 2017 walkout from the negotiations at Buenos Aires, to these extra-institutional bilateral and plurilateral agreements, everything shows that in a world with multiple poles of power, the US is seeing little value in an institution like WTO.” This animosity—which is likely to grow under Trump 2.0—presents the majority world with a key diplomatic opening to push for long overdue and progressive reforms at the WTO.

Additionally, progress made through regional trading blocs, including, but not limited to, the Association of South-East Nations (ASEAN), the BRICS coalition, and the MERCOSUR bloc, should continue to be prioritized over business with the US and its allies. It is true that the US’s digital expertise and its ability to deploy large-scale investments provide it with an undeniable edge over countries struggling to develop digital sovereignty. But by prioritizing principles of scientific internationalism and local collaboration, much of this dependence on the US can be replaced with local centers of expertise, including China, India, Brazil, and even Europe.

At the end of the day, it is imperative to protect the process of digitalization from a purely profit-driven agenda, both inside and between our borders. However, recent skirmishes with Big Tech, even in the US, should remind the governments of the majority world of not only the multi-faceted harms they may unleash on their people, but also the immense technological value they may unintentionally trap.

*This essay synthesizes and complements conversations and perspectives gathered from researchers, experts, and scholars. The interviews were conducted through email and 1:1 conversations. Additional editorial inputs were provided by Amay Korjan.