Refocusing on Economy Could Help Trump, Tech Industry Succeed, Says AEI's Swanson

Despite the "rocky start" between President Donald Trump and Silicon Valley on the immigration order, the new administration's focus on policy, regulatory and tax changes can be "especially good" for the technology industry, said American Enterprise Institute visiting fellow Bret Swanson in a Friday blog post. He said "long overdue tax reform" will allow big tech companies to "redeploy hundreds of billions of dollars of capital" held overseas into R&D and other investments in the U.S. He said "a return to sanity" at the FCC would spur network infrastructure investment into 5G technology and help boost broadband and support future innovation like self-driving cars and digital health. The tech industry can "enthusiastically" support most of these policy changes, but Swanson said the administration can also learn a lot. "If it listens to technology firms, it will likely gain a deeper appreciation for the contributions of immigrant technologists and entrepreneurs," he wrote. "It might also pick up on a cultural strength of many technology firms, where collaboration, instead of all-out confrontation, is rewarded with positive-sum growth." He said the two sides are "unlikely to succeed without each other." Swanson didn't outright criticize Trump's executive order on the travel ban, but said the administration has shown an ability to "correct mistakes." A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Thursday unanimously upheld a district judge's suspension of that travel ban (see 1702100042).