Minutes. Welcome to our panel on trade on the internet. My name is daniel activates. I am honored to be your panelist today. Before i get started and introduce the panelists. Were not only talking about this because of the sheer commercial impact, which michael hinted to and anyone who pretends watch the stock market this days. It is also about data. It is about its importance to crossborder trade. Is about ip, and its about privacy. I will throw a quick statistic at you, then i promise i will not pretend to know much more, but between 2005 and 2014, crossborder data flows increased nearly 50 times. That means that this is a brand new exciting and kind of terrifying problem for us. Those crossborder data flows are also generating more than 3 trillion a year in economic revenue. Which is a staggering number. Its not to say does all rainbows and butterflies. These opportunities come with a lot of risks. Thats what were going to get out today. Let me introduce our fantastic panelists. I will start here. Before coming to washington, he was part of the eu trade commissioner. Even had to the usa and canada team at the European Commission. He contributed to eu trade policy. He was a deputy chief negotiator on that agreement. We will go next to can prompt to works with psa members and data and Security Issues in the u. S. And abroad. Before that, he served as you legal counselor will to the eu. And he advised on trade negotiations with the eu. Finally, a global leave for International Trade policy on facebook. Before going to facebook, he was part of the trade delegation for the executive office of the president responsible for overseeing u. S. Trade policy. And served as a lead ip negotiator. Pretty fantastic group. I will give them each a few minutes to tee up some of the issues they think are pretty important. And digital trade provisions in these agreements, then we will digging deeper. What i start . Switch right to the bottom. Great. Thank you very much. Thank you for that very kind introduction, daniel. Its really great to be here this morning and i am glad that, despite the potential for shutdown, we have a great audience. So, as daniel said, i lead on global trade issues for facebook. Relatively new. But i think what is great for me is the opportunity to continue to work on issues that i really leave passionately in. That is really about the ability for trade to change peoples lives and to create new economic opportunities. That is why, i think in the internet sector, it is such an important area to get the rules right. If you look, i think this is an opportune time for the negotiation of the right to rules, because virtually the entire trading system is built on rules that were developed in the early 1990s. Before the internet. Before everything that we sort of know and come to love. Before twitter, before facebook , before streaming services. Really, this is a great opportunity to get the rules right. I think we will talk about that today. I think for facebook, we are part of a larger ecosystem and part of the larger internet sector. To give you more statistics about the importance of the internet sector and why do so important to get the rules right, the internet sector is responsible for 6 of u. S. Gdp. 3 million u. S. Jobs are dependent on the internet sector. 89 of our u. S. Services exports are related to the internet sector. It is really critical because of the value and importance of the u. S. Economy that as were undertaking all these negotiations, that negotiators look to the internet sector to try to find the right solutions. I think it is also important to note that the internet is not just about Internet Companies or startups. Actually, the benefits diffused throughout the entire u. S. Economy. In fact, the real beneficiaries of internet enabled trade and related issues are actually traditional sectors. Manufacturing, financial services, agriculture. 75 of the internets benefits go to the sectors. I think with the right internet provisions and trade agreements, we can get the rules right, but we can also prevent other countries from blocking u. S. Companies. From favoring their own industries and, frankly, stopping the type of innovations that we are used to here in the United States. I think today we will talk a lot about some of the ways that we think are the right ways to modernize existing trade agreements like nafta and the wto. I look forward to the discussion. Thank you. Thank you all for coming this morning. As daniel mentioned, i lead on trade issues for bsa, the software alliance. Is an Industry Association that represents software industry. These are companies that are have made Services Like cloud commuting services, Artificial Intelligence, data analysis, central to their business plans. All of those services have one thing in common. Which is that they require the ability for data to move in a relatively unrestricted fashion around the globe. Large quantities of data. Much larger quantities than have ever been transported previously. The challenge now is to create a set of International Trading rules that accommodate, promote, and protect that sort of activity. This is a dramatically new area of the economy. As daniel mentioned, it is an area in which American Companies currently lead the amount spent, for example, on Public Cloud Services in the United States. Was well beyond other countries. But it is growing, perhaps even more quickly, and other parts of the world. There is now a realization around the world that there is a need for these sorts of rules. In some ways, it is a moment that is like the 1980s when a similar realization about intellectual property took root. That this was the foundation of economic activity. And that there was a need for global conventions. We then saw a series of conventions negotiated at the un level, but also the rules negotiated through free trade agreements. Were just at the beginning at that process. With data rules. There was a very ambitious effort that was mounted in the tpp negotiation, the transpacific partnerships that i worked on to some extent within the u. S. Government. That resulted in the First Comprehensive set of protections for data. The side of the United States that agreement, is what well known, but what is probably less well known is that those rules survived intact among 11 other countries that signed the tpp agreement. And they are expected to come into force in the next years. That doesnt mean that the United States government has given up on this agenda. Quite the contrary, in the negotiations to modernize the north American Free trade agreement, there is a digital trade chapter that is under negotiation, that in many ways built upon the work that was done in tpp. Because even in the years since the tpp negotiations began, there been dramatic evolutions and technology. The ability to over accommodate that through the rules. The trade picture is complex at the moment. Multilateral negotiations are in various states. The negotiates of both damien and i worked on is in a state of suspension. Negotiations on a multilateral agreement that would address trade and Services Rules is likewise not progressing at the moment. But there other initiatives that are proceeding regionally, including nafta, and there is the prospect for bilateral agreements, not only involving the United States, but other countries, such as japan picking up on these same principles and proliferating them in their own practice. What we are headed for, i think, is a more complex International Law architecture. Than what we see, for example, in the ip world. That will present challenges for companies, but what the Companies Need most of all is predictable interoperable rules that enable them to conduct these Data Services and bring them to the benefit of consumers and companies around the world. I will stop there. Thank you. Thank you. Good morning. Congratulations to the Georgetown University for organizing this event. Was very glad that were not a victim of the shutdown. Remember october 2013 when there was supposed to host a second round of negotiations in brussels. We had to postpone. I thought this was going to be a second time that a shutdown affects my professional life, but it will not. So congratulations for that. I think things will be interesting to have a conversation today. You may or may not know this, but the eu is the number 1 exporter of commercial services. We are the number 1 trading partner of 80 countries in the world. We have a very ambitious trade agenda. We adopted trade for all, believing that trainees to be for the benefit of everybody, based on our values, but adapted to changes in the modern economy. Theres a whole section on e commerce and data flows. Mostly because there was a realization that our companys and all call industries, need to rely more and all on personal data or nonpersonal data. The distinction is important from our perspective. Is a we embarked on an ambitious agenda. The European Union is in our dna to be multilateral as. We are strong defenders of the world trade organization. Is not a matter of ideology, and is a matter of interest. s how you view the world. Our countries trade with other countries in the world. So is best to have roles at the global level. Think we all agreed that it will be fantastic if we already have an ecommerce chapter. Like we have trips. Im sure we will have some discussions on those issues. We remain attached to the rules based trading system. A Global Trading system. What it means is that we need rules. Modern rules. We agree that at a multilateral level, otherwise, we will have agreements, which will talk about that. But we need to enforce mechanisms. The rule does not have any value if you cannot enforce it. It has absolutely no value. Otherwise you go back to situations where it is the law of the stronger. We believe very much in the power of the rules. When you look at our trade agreements, when you go back to korea in 2006, and has very little on ecommerce. Then you have singapore, but more. Japan, which concluded very recently has provisions on the nonobligation. You cannot oblige companies to give the source code. Was raining this morning. A story that in china, even when you do video games, you have to give your source code to the government. It seems excessive. Im also reading that if you make refrigerators and you want to offer recipes for your custom me customers, based on what is in the fridge, because the bridge might be intelligent enough to know what was in the fridge, you also would have to provide source code. Doesnt seem to make much sense to me. If you look at our provisions, even the later ones in which we are proposing in mexico negotiations, you may not know this, but we decided 2015 to launcher renegotiation. All of our text is online. It is very transparent you can see in detail what we are looking for in eu mexico, eu chile. And eu indonesia. We have this of more than 10 countries, as you know. I would say that we are very ambitious on all these areas and i can only invite you to have a look at these provisions and see to what extent you think they are adapted to the modern world. Thank you. Thank you guys. This is a fantastically to tip some of the interesting issues here. One of the big running threads is about data. Is about a few things that i think would be interesting to scope out for the audience. And we worry about trade agreements and data provisions, we worry about a few things. One is an increasing trend around the world towards data localization permissions, which are those that are not always engaged in the space referring to as a country would require you to hold data about your users within that country. They can also be paired with crossborder data regulations, where you could not take data from your home country users and export it anywhere else. Sometimes that is done explicitly. Sometimes it is done through provisions that make it practically impossible to do so. I would love to start off their get a sense from each of you about what you think the risks are from that. What the benefits are and what the trendline is for a lot of these agreements Going Forward to how to get around them, or stop them, or scope them so that they are the most interesting and useful. Whoever wants to start this off. I will start on that. First, on the trend, there definitely, and impartially, is a trend towards an increasing number of what are called localization measures. And sometimes outright bans on the export of data. We see this around the world. In countries as diverse as china, russia, brazil, indonesia, vietnam. It is something that affects not just the software industry, but a whole range of other industries. Manufacturers, for example, that now have Software Embedded in their products. The example of aircraft engines that are constantly transmitting data about how they are performing back to boeing. So the importance of these data flows is crosscutting. The problem with localization measures is that they reduce the efficiency of services. They can require companies to create local facilities to store data. It increases costs. Also, can be less secure. And it is fundamentally, antithetical to the Business Model that has developed in this area. Trade agreements are one clear way to try to address that. Some of the agreements that have been mentioned already this morning, the tpp, the nafta, would have strong provisions limiting the ability of governments to restrict data flows to host localization requirements. There are of course Public Policy needs in certain circumstances on the parts of governments to restrict the data flows, but the most important thing is that they are disciplined and the not able to be used in an arbitrary and a tory way. Distributor away. I would largely agree with what can just said. For company like facebook, which is diversifying and building facilities. For example, we Just Announced an underseas cable to deliver Internet Access at faster speeds between virginia and spain. Clearly, this is something that we are investing heavily in. Because we have a lot of experience in this, this is an area where i think we feel very strongly that provisions that were in tpp, and now the new successor agreement to the tpp, the comprehensive and progressive transpacific partnership, its quite a mouthful. So, that has sustained data localization provisions there and we also understand nafta modernization also has that. It is largely, for facebook, from our perspective, it undermines the free and open nature of the internet. If you start having data localization requirements around the world in different regions, you can start spinning out a balkanization of the internet, which defeats the very purpose of its strength and its power and its reach. From our perspective, we think decisions that should be made on technical considerations and user needs. That allows opportunities to ensure that you are serving your customers. Our user base across the world should be based on issues like reliability and security and performance. That can dictate different results, based on the networks in each country. From our perspective, we are very supportive of that. Is not just for Companies Like facebook and for many of the companies that kens organization represents, but also for small startups. A company like facebook does have resources to build some of these infrastructure facilities, but a small startup cannot possibly comply with all of the data localization requirements in every region, if that was the way that this was trending. This is a key plank of what is a 21st Century Digital trade situation. Thank you. First of all, we also, as i said initially, we want to favor data flows. We have taken a different tack on the relationship between provisional data privacy and trade agreements that the United States and other countries. So we have decided not to have any provision on data privacy in our trade agreements. I think it is important to understand why. Is because data privacy is a fundamental right issue in the unit European Union and any comparisons will seem imperfect, but when i watch your Second Amendment debate, which is fundamental liberty debate in this country, as a european, i sometimes am scratching my head in trying to understand the various arguments, and in particular, the outcome of the conversation. But its the third time ive been living here, as a student, and as a lawyer, now as a diplomat, so i know little bit about the country, so i kind of respect that. From the european perspective, we need to understand and and keep in mind is that more than half of the members of the European Union were at some point in dictatorial regimes, so the citizens have been surveilled in the subject of constance surveillance, electronic, or by your neighbors, friends, family, and they have a very strong desire to protect the privacy of your personal data, also coming from that background. Going back to the regimes before the second world war. The communist regimes and regimes in mediterranean countries. Greece, spain, and portugal. Keep that in mind when you look at your. Keep in mind that it is a constitutional law debate, whether or not certain rights are protected and what are the limits of those rights and the limits of the decisions of the European Commission in looking at the data policy regime of the countries. If you read the decisions of the court of justice, keep in mind that the court of justice is coming from that perspective. With an objective to protect the rights of the citizens. And therefore, the consequences that it is not acceptable for a trade agreement to limit those fundamental rights and to limit also the possibility of institutions, including the court, to develop that further, the regime of data privacy laws. That being said, the commission recently proposed legislation proposal on nonpersonal data. The free flow of nonpersonal data within the European Union. We found out that they are a lot of restrictions by governments on where you keep data. For example, in sweden, all accounting data needs to be localized in sweden. We had a provision that did not make a lot of sense. And so, we see very much the value of ensuring the free flow of data, to making sure that we get better services, stronger, more reliable, and the Tech Industry must fully acknowledge also the challenge that we are seeing more and more reaches of data and i think, even in this country, people feel that the data is less secure than 5 years ago. So i think theres a real challenge on the issue. I think that the industry must show that keeping the data in one place is not really making the data safer. Obviously, you have another challenge. Im coming from belgium, you may remember some terrorist attacks. It was 2 years ago now. The terrorists were communicating via all kinds of apps and the data on those communications are not in europe. So when a prosecutor is investigating the case, to make sure justice can be done, the prosecutor from belgium is confronted with the u. S. Companies in this case saying, sorry, your court order cannot be recognized, you need a warrant. There is a real issue there that needs to be addressed. But i think that the industry can support the exercise. The trust of the Public Opinion , if more more of these investigations are sought because the data has been transferred in the authorities can access it, there will be no data localization. I think that the data flows and the data can be localized in another country. But you need to have a mechanism to make sure that authorities can have access that they need for the protection of companies and the persons concerned. I want to just comment on the first part of your remarks. About commercial data flows and privacy. Not on the Law Enforcement access, which is the second issue the touchdown, which is also an important one. You are, of course, right to emphasize that there is a difference to the United States and europe in the perspective of how dataflow provisions and privacy laws should interact. I certainly dont dismiss the historical experience in europe having lived and worked in germany and also in belgium. It is quite different. The appreciation in some respects, from the United States, but if you completely remove privacy related questions from the scope of data flows obligations, that is unfortunately potentially a very large loophole that can be exploited, because there genuinely motivated privacy measures in their measures that are protectionist in nature, there justified on grounds of privacy. You need to be able to distinguish the two. The way you can do that is through trade agreements that require that they are is narrowly tailored as possible. Frankly, this has proven it difficult in negotiations directly between the United States and the European Union. This is a stumbling point in negotiations. I understand from the press that this has proven to be a stumbling point in the negotiations between the eu and japan. There are some indications that the position may be evolving at the eu level and that is to be welcomed. It is one of the issues in which the remains some difference between the two sides of the atlantic. I think you stole a couple of my questions from asia went back and forth. Tank you for making my job easier. Lets talk about that solution a little bit. In the draft, it was a legitimate Public Policy reason exception from the free dataflow provisions. Data flows are free to put cross the borders, as long as you have a legitimate Public Policy reason. Carefully scope, it sounded like reasonable imitations. Do we think that it still opens a loophole that countries will be able to hold use, or do we think the Public Relations consequences are enough to stop countries that might otherwise try to game it and use it as a big loophole. Do we think its going to close the gap . It is obviously too soon to know and practice. We dont have these kinds of obligations in force, but for example, there is a strong obligation in this respect in the tpp 11 agreement. The sea tpp in countries like vietnam that have a localization requirements. They will be obliged to change their laws. In order to comply with that agreement. They will have to wait and see if that is something that actually happens. One expects governments to comply with the international obligations. These are difficult in practice. There are strong commercial interests. Just to add to kens excellent explanation, these rules are drafted in mind with preserving legitimate flexibility for governments, but most important, providing stability and certainty for all of the range of Service Providers that are going to use these networks. I think one of the benefits in the tpp language was that it was developed with an eye towards commonly understood terms from wto jurisprudence. The exceptions language is closely modeled on exceptions that many countries and governments are used to. I ultimately, what happens is that it shifts the burden. I think that is important. Creates the role of the road. There will always be opportunities for abuse, but at least there is a carefully thought out provision. Again, these rules in tpp, for example, one of the benefits of the language was that it was negotiated amongst 12 radically Different Countries in some ways. Countries as small as brunei, which is essentially 4 to 50,000 people. To large economies like United States and japan. If you have all these different traditions at the table, and you can arrive at a common rule , that i think has a lot of legitimacy and a lot of staying power. I have no comment on tpp whether it is efficient or not, but two points, the European Union always supported tpp i think anything without an accurate acronym is not good, i suppose. When the second point is that as 10 mentioned, the European Commission has been looking at the interplay between the flow of personal data to countries and free trade agreements. For over a year now. Theyve come to some kind of a solution or position which will be shared internally with the european institutions. And is a member of the union. The parliament and the body with the supervisors and regulators. We will take it forward. Want to have an institutional conversation on this position and then take it forward. I think the focus so far has been on the decisions. And keeping in mind that data can flow. All the users of facebook in europe have signed a contract, which applies to a standard clause. Your data can flow. Is up of the data cannot flow, it is that you want the data to flow legally, and one has to check the provisions, then you have other provisions, corporate rules, and i will spare you the details. Youll be discussing adequacy. The decisions with japan and korea. We already have it with nine other countries in the world. My guess is that we will do more. I would like to get your thoughts on some of these emerging issues. How is the internet going to push this in whichever direction . We talk about the internet of things, were talking about devices in your daily life that are connected, generally wifi connected or otherwise, that will be translating all sorts of data about you. Your washing machine it is your refrigerator. It is your echo. Or google home, which you probably have. These will vastly increase the amount of data and how personally that data is. Do we think that fits within the paradigms we already talk about for digital trade, or does require new ways of thinking that are starting to emerge, or are we already there in talking about digital trade provisions as far as iot is concerned . Does this change your thinking at all . In some respects, it can be an easier set of issues. Not to denigrate it, because there are legitimate Security Issues and others that arise in that area. Remember that the data in general that is generated by devices not personal data. There may be situations where the data sets are mixed with he might have some personal data and then data that is simply nonpersonal, but for the most part, with the issues of privacy that arise in the context of commercial data flows otherwise are not there. Were looking with interest at this proposed regulation from the commission on the free flow of data, which applies to nonpersonal data as they described it. There are questions that remain as to what the definitions will be to ensure that impulse behind it, the direction that it takes, is obviously a positive one and one that seeks to address some of these concerns. It is too early to tell. Its like some chinese politician talking about the french revolution. Its too early to tell. Here, it is really too early to tell whether the internet is changing things. I would not say that the data from a machine is not versatile. For take the type of fridge that is in the fridge is very personal. Can reveal preferences. It can reveal many preferences that are very personal. Cross it across two or three devices, will have a very accurate profile of the person living in the house, so i would not be so certain that personal data would not be produced by these machines. The answers im getting are too soon to tell, that makes me feel [null] at the cutting edge. I will take this is a good time. Lets move on from data for second. We only have about 10 minutes left before we opened it up to questions from the audience. Lets talk a little bit about the other hot button issues, which is ip. Theyre all kinds of patent questions and copyright questions, for the platforms, i think its particularly important and interesting. Do their exist safe harbors . The platforms are for things the users do. I would like to get at least a cursory sense from you guys about where the ip provisions are headed. With a trendline looks like and what we should be excited about and worried about. And social property, this is an issue i spent more than 10 years studying and being a student, still learning. But also negotiating. Also seeing the evolution of technology, the evolution of products and services. When i first started doing this area, the issue was counterfeit handbags on one end and then see these. Pirated cds and marketplaces where you can go and buy dvds. I think the world has changed significantly. For example, on some of the revenues, as reported in the Recording Industry that streaming now is number 1 source of revenue. If you see the trajectory of how technology is really enabled creativity and innovation, i think it is really important that intellectual property rules are also done right here in this area. For facebook, i think that we are a Technology Platform that obviously is a platform for users to share and connect around things that they care about. That often is content. Engaging content. Our partners in the media and entertainment sectors generally have facebook pages and some of the most engaging content comes from them. It is really important that you have a Partnership Based approach. That is really we see the industry heading. One of the things that is really interesting to me is that we have these debates about the trade industry against another industry. But as i see the businesses evolving, were actually seeing a lot more of a symbiotic win win relationship. Using large studios develop their own streaming platforms. You are seeing internet platforms develop fun dip funded content. Their words at all they were chose, so the world is really becoming one in this area. That is i think, where we start from what we support for intellectual property, and im sure we have some questions about this, but the principle is that United States has some of the strongest content and Innovative Industries in the world as well is the strongest technology companies. That is no surprise. That is because youre very strong copyright and patent laws, but you also have important exceptions and limitations to allow innovation and creativity, as well as allow technological change. That is the focus and lens that we take with respect to intellectual property and trade agreements. We agree we support the u. S. Copyright framework, which provides safe harbors for responsibility platforms, as long as content is taken down. But gives the ability to really develop the platforms that we are seeing, and provide platforms for them to work together. Thats what tpp had. That is what we are hoping that the nafta modernization efforts will also reflect. Also, as we have seen the evolution in technology, we are also seeing the concomitant importance of exceptions in u. S. Law for copyright. So fair use, which is an important part of the u. S. Ip ecosystem, it has become even more important to support technological change and to support user generated content. To support Artificial Intelligence. And other technological innovations. It is really important to have that balance right. That is another area that we are really hoping, along with a variety of other technology companies, but also startups, to make sure that u. S. Trade policy really reflects that really important balance. From our perspective, there is no it is not a zerosum game. It is ultimately winwin if you take the entire ecosystem and support that through ip and trade agreements. Just briefly to highlight one point which is that there is an active discussion going on in the nafta negotiations about a proposal that apparently the United States has put forward that would create intermediary immunity with respect to nonip content. Noncopyrighted content. That is based upon u. S. Law, section 230, the Communications Decency act. Typically, this is not reflected in the statute and other quite countries around the world, so there is an interesting debate going on with mexico and canada about this. There is, of course, case law that is emerging for all different judicial systems, including in europe. It is not uniform. This is an area where we also think there is a strong benefit that could be gained from addressing it in a trade agreement. To be brief, we do have a provision like that in our trade agreements. We have a provision on dialogue. A number of issues, including liability of internet Service Providers on some broader topics. It does not mean ip is not important for us. Usually is. The counterfeit handbags in your. Europe. And indeed, the cds were something of the past. In our trade agreement, we have a strong ip chapter. Im sure he has read them or study the more than i have. Where we push the countries to have very high standards and make sure we have enforceable provisions. As i said, it is very important. We have taken may be one or two cases against United States. For example, irish music. The issue of whether or not you have to pay copyright or the work is copyright protected. If it is in bars or restaurants, or Something Like that. Not very important cases. Showing that enforcement is important for the European Union. We have time for one more. I like to get into a little bit on how the sausage is made for this. There is a lot of divergence among ip systems internationally. There is some agreement on principles, but in the u. S. , it is patent copyright trademark. In other systems, it is delineated differently and the rights are certainly scoped differently. When you are approaching a negotiation with a country with diverging ip systems, how do you get ip provisions that account for everyone systems, needs, and set the kind of high standards youre talking about. Happy to chat about that. Intellectual property typically is in the transpacific partnership, it was 70 singlespaced pages with dozens and dozens of footnotes. Ultimately, it is an opportunity for negotiators to educate other countries on systems. Typically, what happens is that in the most recent experiences, the transpacific partnership, one of the reasons that we think it is a great model, it certainly could have been improved, but there a lot of really good things about it. One of the reasons is that it goes to the question that you have to bring a number of systems around. One of the benefits of the ip trade area is that it is built on a Strong Foundation of International Treaties administered by the world intellectual property on the issues of intellectual property. It is built on what we call internet treaties and other places, but also the wto trips agreement. Some hunters are still in the process, even now, 25 years later. At the same time, that is a good starting place. Ultimately, the context is that the areas that are typically most important and difficult to get through our areas like agile copyright. Areas like pharmaceutical and intellectual property protection. So the best in class enforcement provisions, things like that. I think that the challenge, for example, with tpp was just ensuring that the other negotiators are keeping up with technological change in the areas that countries are now legislating about, but are really important to having that kind of a balanced ecosystem that we talked about. That is an area that in the work that i did with the European Union, we really tried to find shared opportunities. Most countries do have a Creative Class or want to develop that. That is actually a great opportunity to have, but also a sharing of experiences. I think it is Perfect Timing to get ourselves some audience questions. Understanding is that someone from the conference will grab a microphone and pass around and see what you have to say for themselves. Any questions . Good morning. At the beginning, you mentioned that one of the Biggest Challenges we are facing is that the rules we currently have four developed two decades ago when the internet was not conceptualized remotely into how was develop. Id be interested to hear from the panel at a whole, it is see the negotiations they accounting for the development of tomorrow . We talked a little bit about this internet of things. The idea that the toaster could trap track what kind of bread i am toasting, and yes. Having participated in the negotiations in the original nafta agreement, i can assure you that none of what has happened in the intervening 25 years was in our minds at that point. That is why the inclusion of the digital trade factor as such would be an important part of modernizing that agreement. To what extent are we anticipating the technological changes that are to come . That is hard. None of us have a crystal ball. But there is an effort in a number of the provisions to make them as forwardlooking as possible. There is, for example, also in tpp, a provision with an electronic signature or identification of contracts. They thinking about technologies and distribute it measures distributive ledgers, which would be more important in coming years. The provisions on source code that damien mentioned fall into that same category. There was likewise some thinking in the nafta discussions about projection for algorithms against forced transfer or disclosure. That, of course, looks to Artificial Intelligence developments as well. It is a great question. You go as far as you can in terms of having reasonable predictability or certainty that the technologies will be relevant. But also, you need to have consensus and a political buy in on both sides that this is doable. In any event, on one hand, a couple of basic rules continue to apply. You cannot discriminate. Is a fundamental principle on trade agreements, the exception is in the way they are constructed and applied and as can explain. Many of them have review clauses, mechanisms that they can be adapted and modernized. I was told that nafta was changed 13 times. In our ingredient agreement, we have Committee Structures and they can modify the agreements. Can adapt it to change. There, you have a builtin mechanism if you want to make sure that you remain flexible. Echo what damien said, for example, tpp was conceptualized as a living agreement. Every 2 years or 3 years, or even on a yearly basis, you would have meetings that would cover different areas. So digital signatures, would be something they would continue to consult on. They have had subsequent for the initial agreements, they have subsequent agreements on certain areas like ecommerce, on telecoms. Theres a reference paper and things like that they were all where the parties came back together and said we need to build on the previous agreement revisions. Ensuring that there is opportunity to revisit within reason, and then second, careful treaty drafting. That is another area where one of the benefits of the gatt dates back. Some of them have been well established there been a lot of opportunities to test them. But governments also understand what they mean, too. That is the trick. Finding stability and certainty, but leaving open opportunities to revisit where we are. Thank you for being here today. This was incredibly informative and useful. I wanted to ask, because it feels like free trade and american prosperity, the whole point of this conference, seems to me, is about why free trade still matters. I was curious if you talk a bit about this idea of populism that is rejecting globalization , that doesnt necessarily think that free trade agreements are good, a movement against tpp. How do you explain these difficult concepts of rulesbased Trading Systems and of an open and free internet, of balancing the interest of privacy with the interest of security. High . When that to people who maybe have a difficult grasp of it, who think more in gut instincts, and how do you translate these complex technical, decades long endeavors to understand these concepts, how do you translated in a way that resonates to the broader public . I think it depends on your audience and your public. I cannot talk about what happens in this country. I can only talk about my own experience as a negotiator were certainly, we had hundreds of thousands of people on the street demonstrating against the trade agreement. We never seen this before. As i said, trade is in our dna. The instruction of the European Union was to remove the barriers between the countries and that creates prosperity. You build common markets, competition authorities, and so forth. I think people understand fully that is not just in france, but in belgium and germany. If you can sell there, you can do for money and your company can hire more people. I think that is intuitive, but what we saw in tpp was a different type of debates. And we have a reacted to a. Reacted to it on the way that we communicated on trade negotiations. Were the most transparent negotiating body in the world. Our text is online. Everything is online, except for market access, when you have to keep your cards close to the chest. Only specific sectors are interested. Saying that want to know how much my government is going to sacrifice if it makes concessions. We engage much more on conversations, public debates, going to national parliaments, also, we publish the text of people said i do not understand these things. Was in well, that is the text. Can you please publish a text explain your text . Which we have done. But you lose a little bit of granularity in detail when you do that. But we have done that. On our website, you see the text and the explanation of the tax. Not yet the expiration of the explanation. We did that in 22 languages because the European Union works in 22 languages. He also had a language barrier, of course. English is known by many people, but not everybody can understand the text. We also answered on substance by doing a wide public consultation. Which is right for Foreign Investors in the host country to sue the host government and the host government is waving the immunity. We have a reacted and we have engaged. People cannot vote against technology and change. You cannot vote against cyber change, but you can vote against trade agreements, therefore, the votes crystallize as the opposition to many other things. I will let my american friends respond to the question in the conversation of how you deal with that in this country. May be a last word on populism, it is all about information and education. If you followed the brexit debate, you fully recognize the right of the United Kingdom to leave the European Union. It was very sad. We are managing the process as best we can. But what is key is to explain and keep on explaining things. Treaties are complex. They try to organize, coming back to the point of the gentleman there, a vastly changing world. The trying to capture all of that in the treaty. When you extract yourself from a very deep and comprehensive treaty relationship, it affects many areas. First, a comment on european populism over trade, damien probably remembers the negotiating rounds in brussels where there were large