“For years, governments have mostly agreed not to put tariffs on digital trade, meaning countries do not tax cross-border downloads, streaming media, software, and other electronic products the way they tax some physical goods. That arrangement recently came under pressure, with Brazil and some other countries reluctant to extend the measure because they worry it limits future tax revenue. Now, 19 countries including the United States have agreed among themselves to keep digital trade duty-free, helping preserve a small but important piece of open commerce,” reports The Doomslayer.
Reuters explains:
The U.S. and more than a dozen other countries including Japan, South Korea, Singapore and Australia on Thursday launched their own pact to not impose duties on e-commerce after no agreement was reached to end deadlock with Brazil, a document showed.
Brazil upheld its opposition to a four-year extension of a global deal at World Trade Organization talks in Geneva which concluded on Thursday. However, Turkey, which had previously been against it, dropped its opposition, a WTO spokesperson said.
Failure at a high-level WTO meeting in Yaoundé, Cameroon, in March to renew the long-standing moratorium on duties for cross-border streaming and downloads marked another setback for the WTO, as business groups said it raised serious concerns about the ability of the organization to set global trade rules.
The moratorium, agreed in 1998 and regularly renewed since, bars duties on cross-border electronic transmissions such as streaming music or films and downloading software.
In addition to the United States, the agreement includes nations such as Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Australia, Norway, Argentina, and Canada.
