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UNITED STATES TRADE Secretary of State Wilbur Ross warned that Europe and the United States face serious economic consequences if the problems raised by the Schrems ruling are not resolved.
The global financial billionaire, whose private equity fund had a 5.5% stake in the Bank of Ireland until 2014, spoke this afternoon via video link at the Zoom event hosted by Business and Finance Media.
In July, a decision by the Court of Justice of the European Union overturned a legal mechanism called the Privacy Shield, a data protection agreement between the EU and the US.
The ruling was made in the wake of a case brought by Austrian privacy lawyer Max Schrems, who took the case to highlight the gulf between European data protection laws and American rules that allow tech companies to hand over European user data. to US government spy programs.
The case was first brought to the High Court of Ireland after Schrems complained to the Irish Data Protection Commissioner about Facebook’s use of Standard Contractual Clauses (SCC) to transfer personal data to the US.
In his keynote address today, Ross, who has served in US President Donald Trump’s cabinet since 2016, said the United States remains “deeply concerned” by the July ECJ ruling.
He said the ruling “has complicated the free flow of data that underpins the most innovative relations between the United States and Europe.”
“This decision has negative implications for the feasibility of using SCC, binding corporate rules and other mechanisms for EU-US data transfers. US “, which” underpin our $ 7.1 trillion transatlantic economic relationship, “Ross said this afternoon.
“If companies in the EU and the US continue to face legal burdens and uncertainty while transferring data across the Atlantic, the US and Europe will face dire economic consequences.”
In September, the Trump administration published a white paper on the subject.
Its aim was to help US companies make the legal argument that they can transfer personal data from the EU to the US in accordance with EU law.
However, its authors, the Ross Department of Commerce, the US Department of Justice and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, cautioned that it does not “remove the urgent need for clarity from European authorities or the onerous charges of compliance generated “by the Schrems decision.
This afternoon, Ross said the Trump administration was committed to working with European lawmakers to solve those problems.
Ross also said his department “will continue to make resources available to Irish business and government” with a view to “deepening bilateral economic ties.”
Butter rates
Ross’s remarks were followed by a panel discussion on the future of Irish-US economic relations between Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe; US Congressman Richard Neal; IBEC CEO Danny McCoy and John Jordan, CEO of Ornua, maker of Kerrygold.
Jordan said tariffs imposed by the Trump administration on $ 7.5 billion of European imports to the United States last year mean his company is paying “an additional $ 60 million a year in taxes for Kerrygold to enter the United States.”
“One of the products that was affected by the tariffs was butter from Europe, an additional 25% tariff on butter,” he said.
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“Ornua exports 90% of the butter from Europe to the United States. Therefore, it is not a tariff that penalizes Europe. It is a tariff that penalizes Ornua and ultimately Irish farmers. “
Congressman Neal, chairman of the Ways and Means Committee of the US House of Representatives, said one of the biggest challenges in America is that the idea of free trade “doesn’t have the popularity it once did.”
This is, he said, “even though much of our history is based on successful trade deals.”
“The Democrats had been the original free trade party, and they became much more protectionist as the years went by, largely because we are so dependent, for good reason, on work.
“The problem for us was then that it was very difficult to put together some kind of trade agreement, and many of the workers who had previously found comfort in our positions, began to migrate to the Republican Party,” he said.
President Trump, Neal explained, “discovered the politics and the emotions involved. He took a very hard line on trade and blamed trade for all the ills America faced when there was little evidence to back it up. “
Neal said he was hopeful that the US economy would recover from the pandemic and that politicians could agree to a “comprehensive stimulus” package after today’s elections.
“So on Wednesday morning, I hope we wake up and say, ‘We have had other elections and, as always, we have survived,'” he said.
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