America’s New Foreign Policy of Technology

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The globalization of laissez-faire is at breaking point. The COVID-19 pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine have finally exposed the fragility of the global economic system after decades of tension caused by the rise of China and exacerbated by climate change and growing inequality. Now, US leadership is needed to ensure that nationalist and authoritarian forces do not fill the structural vacuum resulting in an increasingly digital world. A new roadmap is needed on how democracies and their allies will address the technological challenges of the 21st century.

The progress has begun. In its first two years, the Biden administration ushered in a new industrial policy strategy that includes tens of billions of dollars in technology subsidies. Meanwhile, Europe is pursuing its own Chips Act to boost domestic semiconductor research, development and manufacturing. Together, the transatlantic partners have imposed strict controls on technology exports to Russia and China.

These new policies hold great promise for building more resilient supply chains, creating jobs, and safeguarding national security. Yet the current international economic system is not fit for purpose. The new US industrial policy faces accusations of protectionism from allies and competitors. Europe opposes provisions on new clean energy subsidies and China has accused the United States of weaponizing and politicizing science and technology to maliciously lock down and suppress Chinese companies.

This backlash threatens to undermine US efforts to lead on global rules and values. The United States must have the support of its allies to address technological challenges, from limiting Chinese access to critical semiconductor technology to challenging efforts by standards organizations to approve surveillance technologies. All this must be done in the name of promoting global rules and defending democratic principles and values. Yet questions have emerged about the compatibility of a digital geopolitical approach with traditional US advocacy for an open, global internet and human rights more generally.

Domestically, new US government spending must not exclude entrepreneurs and innovators, but it must include guardrails to ensure offline rights and protections apply online. Ecosystems that produce advances in biotechnology, ensure citizens in repressive countries have access to information, and underpin the production of globally interconnected semiconductors require careful nurturing through partnerships with the private sector. A top-down approach will not be successful.

To resolve all these tensions, the United States must fill the gaps in the old 20th century system with new multi-stakeholder institutions for the digital age. These building blocks would form a new technology policy architecture to support socially responsible innovation and digital commerce. To build this new architecture requires a new technology foreign policy composed of three fundamental parts:

Fostering innovation through a digital policy lab: The lab would serve as a platform for national public-private-civil society partnerships that would foster government capacity building, agile coordination of investments, and the development of clear barriers to enable innovation and democratic accountability. Enabling resilient allied supply chains (or friend-shoring) by creating a new international technology task force would strengthen cooperation between democracies and allies. Joint action should start by focusing on semiconductors, green technologies (e.g. electric vehicles) and critical minerals. The task force would act like the International Energy Agency, which was formed by member countries of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in response to the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) oil cartel. . It would make supply and demand data available for planning purposes, coordinate responses to shortages or vulnerabilities, including the introduction of subsidies, and provide a venue for countries to reconcile export controls and ensure technology standards in areas such as the 5/6G. Defend digital democracy by internationally promoting the principles of the Declaration for the Future of the Internet, a commitment signed by 61 countries that promises to support an open, free, global, interoperable, trusted and secure Internet. This would renew the commitment to a broader conception of Internet freedom through continued efforts to adopt complementary Internet guardrails and thwart Internet shutdown, censorship, surveillance, information operations, and cyberattacks. Download the complete PDF

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