Streaming a Movie Abroad May Soon Come With Taxes at the Border

The decades-old global consensus that’s allowed e-commerce and a growing tidal wave of data to cross borders without tolls is at risk of falling apart.

Every couple of years since 1998, ministers at the World Trade Organization have renewed a moratorium on digital customs charges. It’s kept online transactions — a Netflix movie streamed in South Africa, an international Zoom call with a doctor in India, an e-book downloaded on a beach in Bali – free of tariffs throughout the internet age.

Maybe not for much longer. The WTO meets in Abu Dhabi next week with the latest moratorium set ...