Digital Policy Alert | 2 December 2025
Is US pressure against foreign digital policy working?
by Tommaso Giardini
The US government’s pressure against digital policy is having an effect on the international and domestic level. Several governments have entered formal commitments on digital policy in “tariff deals” with the US. These deals, however, represent only the visible tip of the iceberg. The Digital Policy Alert (DPA) database reveals that governments are adapting their domestic digital policy even without deal commitments. A chilling effect, including governments pulling back their digital services taxes and adopting fewer restrictions on data flows, is emerging.
We investigate the effect of US pressure on both the international and domestic level. For the international level, we dissect all available “tariff deals” to identify commitments on digital policy. The overview below visualises these commitments, while the Annex provides all relevant text passages. For the domestic level, we leverage the DPA database to identify trends and concrete examples, without inferring causality. We compare global developments in the 8 months before the release of a US memorandum scrutinising foreign digital policy (2,428 DPA entries at the time of writing) to the 8 months after (2,328 DPA entries).
We analyse this effect across a broad spectrum of digital policy. We begin with an in-depth analysis for three types of digital policy that are top-of-mind for the US government: Digital services taxes, restrictions on cross-border data flows, and customs duties on electronic transmissions. Then, we outline five emerging digital policy commitments in tariff deals: non-discrimination, network usage fees, cybersecurity, market entry conditions, and electronic signatures. Next, we discuss four types of digital policy that we expect to arise in coming negotiations: local content promotion and rules regarding online content, competition, and AI. We conclude with three learnings for governments.
