About ITAtoAITA
ITAtoAITA is a history of the creation of the World Trade Organization’s Information Technology Agreement (ITA) and an exploration of what that experience may teach us about international trade policy in the age of artificial intelligence.
The ITA was concluded at the WTO Ministerial Conference in Singapore in December 1996. It eliminated tariffs on a broad range of information technology products and ultimately became one of the most consequential trade-liberalization agreements affecting the technology industry.
This project tells the story of how the ITA came about—not simply from the perspective of governments and formal negotiations, but from inside the international high-technology industry effort that helped conceive the idea, develop it, build support for it, and move it onto the international trade agenda.
The story begins well before Singapore. It examines the trade-policy problems confronting the rapidly changing information technology industry, the earlier agreements and negotiations that helped shape the ITA concept, the development of an industry coalition, and the unusual cooperation among companies, governments, and international institutions that ultimately made a global agreement possible.
The final section then looks forward. Artificial intelligence presents a very different set of technologies and policy challenges, but some of the questions are surprisingly familiar: Can the principal technology-producing nations identify areas of common interest? Can trade barriers be prevented from impeding the diffusion of important technologies? And can lessons from the ITA provide a useful starting point for thinking about an Artificial Intelligence Trade Agreement—or AITA?
About the Author
Aaron Cross spent much of his professional career working at the intersection of technology, international trade policy, government, and public affairs.
Before joining IBM, Cross worked on the White House staff and on Capitol Hill. At IBM, he served as Director of Public Affairs in Washington, D.C., where his responsibilities included international trade policy, U.S. export controls, and other public-policy issues affecting the information technology industry.
His IBM career also included overseas assignments in Paris, Brussels, and Hong Kong, providing firsthand exposure to the international economic and policy environment in Europe and Asia as well as the United States.
During the development of the Information Technology Agreement, Cross chaired an industry coalition of approximately 100 high-technology companies supporting the initiative and worked with companies and industry organizations around the world to build international support for the proposal.
ITAtoAITA draws on that firsthand experience as well as historical records and subsequent research. It is intended both as a history of an unusual episode in international trade policy and as an effort to preserve some of the lessons learned from it.
Questions, Comments, Corrections—and Additional History
This project is intended to encourage discussion as well as document history.
Many people in government, industry, trade associations, and international organizations participated in the events described here. Others have studied the ITA and its consequences in the years since. Their recollections and perspectives may differ, and additional information may help make the historical record more complete.
Readers are therefore invited to send questions, comments, corrections, or additional information. I would particularly welcome hearing from people who participated in the events described in these pages or who have documents, recollections, or other material that could add to the history.
Contact: aaroncross1947@gmail.com