Hilal Aka

The administration should address concerns related to counterfeit products, discriminatory digital taxes, and investment controls for critical technologies with measures to protect American innovation while promoting fair, rules-based trade principles that benefit the U.S. economy and support U.S. technological leadership.

The administration should address mercantilist policies that systematically disadvantage American businesses and workers with corrective measures such as strategic enforcement actions, reciprocal tariffs, expanded trade agreements, and stronger digital trade protections.

The administration should address trade imbalances, discriminatory regulations, and digital trade restrictions imposed by China, India, and the European Union, among others. Targeted policy responses may include reciprocal tariffs, digital trade enforcement, fair pricing mechanisms, and strengthened trade agreements to ensure a level playing field for U.S. businesses.

America should reconsider its antagonistic approach toward Big Tech, instead forging strategic partnerships with these firms—similar to China's recent pivot—to maintain global technological leadership and competitive edge in critical fields like AI and semiconductors.

A growing proliferation of antitrust regulations, content-moderation requirements, data-localization mandates, digital service taxes, exorbitant fines and fees, and local content requirements reveals a clear pattern: They are designed to unfairly burden and extract revenue from American Big Tech.

Vice President Vance was right to warn against stifling AI innovation with excessive regulation, but the Trump administration must go further by pushing back against policies like the EU’s Digital Markets Act and similar U.S. regulatory efforts that undermine American tech leadership. To maintain global competitiveness, the U.S. should support its leading tech companies, ensuring they have the scale and capital needed to drive AI and technological advancements, rather than subjecting them to restrictive regulations that benefit foreign competitors.

The DeepSeek breakthrough does not vindicate or discredit antitrust policies but is a wake-up call. Rather than celebrating moves to hobble its tech ecosystem, the United States needs a coherent national strategy that leverages all American innovative capabilities to ensure U.S. AI leadership.

The FTC's surprising decision to partner with Chinese-owned Temu in its antitrust case against Amazon reveals a dangerous misalignment between American antitrust policy and national security interests, highlighting how regulatory overreach could end up strengthening China's tech dominance.

America’s leading tech companies strengthen U.S. technological superiority by making massive investments in advanced technologies like quantum computing and AI, which are crucial strategic assets in an era of intensifying competition with China.