Dr. Olivia Walch, CEO and Founder of Arcascope and GIF entrepreneur, took the stage to testify before the House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Trade, addressing the vital topic of “Protecting American Innovation by Establishing and Enforcing Strong Digital Trade Rules.”
As a pioneering small business leader, Olivia shared her insights on the challenges of navigating complex digital trade regulations. Her testimony highlighted the importance of fostering innovation, cross-border data flows, and digital trade rules that enable businesses like Arcascope to compete globally and continue providing personalized health solutions.
🌐 Key points from Olivia’s testimony:
– Data Localization: “We can’t afford to constantly re-engineer our backend or consult our lawyer in response to policy changes requiring us to store data locally or pay country-specific tariffs.”
– Digital Tariffs: “Information should not be subject to tariffs in some forms but not others. The World Trade Organization eCommerce moratorium ensures that businesses like mine are not hindered by outdated policies that don’t fit the modern digital economy.”
– Innovation: “Innovation will happen fastest if barriers to data flows across borders are kept as frictionless as possible.”
– Source Code Disclosure: “Requirements to share source code as part of operating in a country would mean exposing our ‘secret sauce’ to foreign regulators that likely do not have our interests—or U.S. interests—in mind.”
Olivia called for continued U.S. leadership on digital trade, ensuring that small, innovative businesses like hers can thrive alongside large companies in the ever-evolving digital economy.
