Big tech monopolies destroy global trade-pacts.

But an issue that unites Americans across political and geographic divides is that these corporations, collectively known as “Big Tech,” have too much power over nearly every facet of our lives. Even those, like X, that have lost the confidence of advertisers have the power to push whatever agenda they want. Big Tech monopolists are squeezing consumers, workers, and smaller businesses, and, with social media’s business model of engagement through enragement, contributing to the polarization of our society.

A robust debate is underway over the new rules needed for the digital era to deal with the host of digital harms with which our society has become concerned. But special-interest lobbyists have been trying to make an end run around the democratic process, seeking to tie our hands through binding trade agreements before we figure out what’s right. Big Tech lobbyists are exploiting the secrecy surrounding ongoing negotiations at the World Trade Organization (WTO) and elsewhere in an attempt to quietly rig international rules. These so-called digital trade rules would impose binding constraints on efforts by Congress, the Biden administration, and their counterparts around the world to regulate the digital sphere. The United States and other WTO signatory countries would be subject to trade sanctions unless and until they eliminate domestic policies that WTO enforcement tribunals deem to violate such constraints.

Big Tech’s trade-pact ploy is to create a global digital architecture where America’s digital giants can continue to dominate abroad and are unfettered at home and elsewhere. These tech giants are motivated not by patriotism but by money. In pushing for particular rules in international trade agreements, the lobbyists are trying to foreclose debate, arguing that any government intervention, including those actions designed to promote competition and prevent digital harms, is an unfair and inefficient restraint on trade. The result of this backdoor strategy, were it successful, would be to constrain the U.S. government—and its partners—from adopting and enforcing privacy, data security, competition, and other policies in the public interest.

THIS IS NOT THE FIRST TIME that trade negotiations have been used to enshrine corporate profits at the expense of the public interest. For decades, Big Pharma has successfully fought for trade-pact rules to expand patent protections, limiting affordable access to lifesaving medicines. We saw the consequences in the HIV/AIDS and COVID-19 pandemics, with many dying needlessly as a few countries refused to grant the intellectual property waiver that would have allowed increased production and lower, more affordable prices of generics.

Big Tech learned the lessons of Big Pharma, and since at least the second Obama term has been engaged in stealthily trying to embed restrictions on legislation and regulations in trade pacts.