Global Tech & Trade Policy Update

24 Mar 2026 01:27 PM

Blog posted by: Sabina Ciofu, 23 Mar 2026.

I’m just back from the whirlwind that was SXSW in Austin, Texas. Were you there? Curious to hear your take and/or whether techUK should be doing more to engage with both the state of Texas and SXSW in Austin and London.  

A few developments worth flagging this week. 

EU–US trade: progress, but heavily conditional 

Members of the European Parliament’s International Trade Committee have endorsed the EU side of the Turnberry accord agreed with the US last August - but not without materially reshaping it. What was framed as tariff elimination is now explicitly a temporary suspension, set to expire on 31 March 2028 (right in the middle of the next US presidential cycle). 

More importantly, MEPs have introduced both a “sunset” and a “sunrise” logic: 

• Tariff suspensions can be reversed if conditions change. 
• Crucially, they only take effect if US tariffs remain at or below 15%. 

There is also a targeted clause on metals: the EU will only suspend duties on steel, aluminium and derivatives if the US reduces its Section 232 tariffs from 50% down to a 15% ceiling. 

In short: this is not liberalisation in the classic sense — it’s conditional, reversible, and tightly linked to US domestic trade policy. With ongoing legal uncertainty in the US (including the Supreme Court ruling on tariff authorities), expect this file to remain politically sensitive and procedurally slow as it moves toward plenary and trilogues. 

A new trade geometry emerging? 

On the sidelines of next week’s WTO Ministerial in Cameroon, EU and Indo-Pacific trade ministers are expected to explore ways of linking major trading blocs - notably the EU and CPTPP economies. 

This is less about replacing the WTO and more about hedging against its limitations. The language coming out of Brussels is telling: calls for a “reset” that restores predictability and fairness, alongside growing interest in coalitions of “middle powers” that don’t want to be forced into binary alignment with either the US or China. 

There are already parallel ideas circulating - from a potential EU–Japan–Canada–Korea deterrence pact to broader efforts led by Canada, Australia, and New Zealand to stitch together a 1.5 billion–person market. Not straightforward, and not without resistance, but clearly momentum is building for more modular, flexible trade architectures. 

EU trade agenda: quietly accelerating 

Several files are moving in parallel: 

• EU–Australia FTA: political momentum is back. Commission President von der Leyen heads to Australia next week, with both sides signaling renewed optimism after the 2023 breakdown (agriculture vs. industrial access still the core tension). 
• Mercosur agreement: the Commission is preparing for provisional application, potentially as early as May, pending final procedural steps. 

China’s Five-Year Plan 

China has released its 15th Five-Year Plan (2026–2030), setting quantified targets across everything from GDP growth and patents to emissions, water quality, and life expectancy. 

Tech, security, and infrastructure: the lines are blurring 

Two developments underline how quickly the boundary between commercial tech and national security is dissolving: 

• In the US, a dispute between Anthropic and the Defense Department over AI usage constraints has escalated into a legal battle. The key issue: who ultimately controls how frontier AI systems are deployed in security contexts - the developer or the state? The use of “supply chain risk” designations in this context could set a powerful precedent. 
• Meanwhile, in the Gulf, data centres have been directly impacted by ongoing conflict, forcing traffic rerouting and exposing how geographically localised disruptions can cascade through global cloud infrastructure. 

 Off to Cameroon this week for the WTO Ministerial Conference. Let me know if you are around – should be quite the conference this year, to say the least.