Trade deals with El Salvador, Guatemala are gifts for tech CEOs
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Public Citizen | 30 January 2026
Trade deals with El Salvador, Guatemala are gifts for tech CEOs
Washington, D.C. — Today, the Trump administration released a new “Agreement on Reciprocal Trade” (ART) with Guatemala, following the nearly identical one released yesterday with El Salvador. These are the latest agreements finalized in response to the so-called reciprocal tariffs that Trump announced on “Liberation Day” and that have been challenged all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.
In response, Melinda St Louis, Global Trade Watch Director at Public Citizen, issued the following statement:
“Here we go again. Trump’s latest deals with El Salvador and Guatemala are packed with giveaways for Big Tech CEOs, who want to impede any and all future laws that might hold them accountable. As we’ve seen with the trade deals with Cambodia and Malaysia, these Latin American deals contains a number of handouts to Big Tech and other corporate interests.”
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Under the agreement, El Salvador and Guatemala will be:
- Barred from implementing taxes on digital services being provided within its borders or customs duties on electronic transmissions, thereby denying the countries a legitimate source of revenue and helping Big Tech companies to avoid paying their fair share.
- Restricted from reviewing algorithms or source code before they are released to the public, which will limit efforts to enhance transparency and accountability of software and AI systems.
- Restrained from implementing digital competition, platform accountability or online safety regulations that could be (mis)construed to discriminate against U.S. tech giants.
In return, the U.S. agrees to remove tariffs on select goods, especially items not made or grown here. This is something that Trump has been feeling domestic pressure to do anyway and that the Supreme Court may soon mandate. The agreements also specifically say the U.S. is permitted to raise tariffs again for nearly any reason.
Overall, these agreements provide further evidence of the Trump administration carrying water for Big Tech, through its trade agenda, recent trade negotiations, and its domestic deregulatory policies.”
