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Is the world finally going to tariff Big Tech?
Very few people are making money in the global economy today, but Big Tech certainly is.
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The internet has been tariff-free for decades. If that changes, it’s because the world has decided it can’t allow the US to run its digital empire forever.
PHOTO: REUTERS
Mihir Sharma
One of the pillars of the global economy fell a few weeks ago, and practically nobody noticed. The 14th ministerial conference of the World Trade Organization ended its meeting in Cameroon in March declaring that, for the first time since in almost three decades, it had failed to reach consensus on a moratorium prohibiting Customs duties on e-commerce.
It is worth noting exactly how long this agreement has lasted. It was in May 1998 that countries first decided that the cross-border “production, distribution, marketing, sale or delivery of goods and services by electronic means” would not be tariffed the way goods are.
