Groups Leading “Right to Repair” Movement Urge Biden Administration to Reject Any Attempts to Derail their Gains Via “Trade” Agreement as Latest Round of Indo-Pacific Trade Negotiations Start

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: September 12, 2023
CONTACT: 518-251-2837

NEWS RELEASE

Consumer, Business, Farm, Digital Groups Leading “Right to Repair” Movement Urge Biden Administration to Reject Any Attempts to Derail their Gains Via “Trade” Agreement as Latest Round of Indo-Pacific Trade Negotiations Start

Washington, D.C. – In a letter sent today, a broad coalition urged the Biden administration to safeguard progress being made in states and nationally to give consumers and businesses a “right to repair” their electronics-enabled equipment and devices, by ensuring that a digital trade agreement being negotiated as part of the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF) does not include a special corporate secrecy shield that could block the right to repair. Signatories include American Economic Liberties Project, Center for Democracy & Technology, Consumer Reports, Farm Action, iFixit, National Farmers Union, The Repair Association, Public Knowledge, and U.S. PIRG.

The Biden administration’s battle against monopolies has spotlighted how consumers, farmers, and small businesses get abused by large manufacturers that unduly restrict access to necessary tools, parts, and information to repair their electronics-enabled equipment and devices. A burgeoning “Right to Repair” movement is making real progress at the state and federal level with five states passing legislation, and the Federal Trade Commission active in enforcing protections for users’ repair choice.

The broad coalition of consumer, business, farm, and digital groups united to raise the alarms about a rule that some in the tech industry are pushing for in the context of a major Biden trade agreement, the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework. The little-known provision, officially called “source code,” was slipped into the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) in 2019 and could thwart the efforts of governments to require that manufacturers share essential information about their software, or even descriptions of algorithms. The way in which the term “algorithm” is defined in that provision could potentially be taken to mean any repair software, manual or other firmware update. The broad coalition of groups has sent a letter to President Biden urging the administration to exclude the damaging USMCA provision from the IPEF.

“People should be able to fix their stuff, and if a trade deal undercuts that, we should fix the trade deal,” said Nathan Proctor, U.S. PIRG’s Right to Repair Campaign Director. “The proposed language creates a massive loophole, undermining legislation cracking down manufacturers who refuse to provide what people need to fix their tablets, toasters and even tractors.”

“Repair.org is very concerned that including this trade language could destroy the rights of owners to control their property, remove constitutional powers granted to states, and replace it with control by dominant multinational companies, regardless of statute,” said Gay Gordon-Byrne, Executive Director of the Repair Association.

The administration has proposed a tight timeline for the IPEF, hoping to reach a final agreement by mid-November when the heads of state of the countries involved meet at a previously-scheduled Asian Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in San Francisco. The latest round of IPEF negotiations started this Sunday, September 10, in Thailand. The IPEF will set binding rules on countries representing 40% of the world economy.

“The right of consumers and businesses to choose where to get their digital devices repaired is a fundamental right of ownership. The authority of governments around the world to protect this right for their citizens should not be overridden by fine print in trade agreements negotiated in secret,” said George Slover, Senior Counsel for Competition Policy at the Center for Democracy & Technology.

“Big Tech’s so-called “digital trade” agenda has been exposed time and again as a threat to the democratic policymaking and the policies required to ensure that the digital economy works for everyone,” said Nidhi Hegde, Managing Director at the American Economic Liberties Project. “Our future cannot be determined in close-door trade negotiations, where members of Congress, civil society, and the general public have no voice. The Biden administration must immediately open up the negotiation process to public oversight and exclude any provisions that could preempt direly-needed right-to-repair reforms.”

"Most consumers who buy a smartphone or a scanner-printer would be surprised to learn that even if they wanted to, they are restricted in how and where they can get these devices repaired and save money and the environment. The right to repair something you own is a fundamental consumer right that we need to protect," said Sumit Sharma, Senior Researcher at Consumer Reports. 

“To keep their operations thriving, American farmers and ranchers must be able to repair their farm equipment as they see fit,” said Joe Maxwell, president of Farm Action Fund. “From Colorado to West Virginia to Washington, D.C., we have made strides in securing right to repair for agriculture. Yet, any language in future trade agreements that could limit policies requiring original equipment manufacturers to provide fair access to digital repair tools would cost America’s farmers and independent repair shops millions of dollars and further increase monopolization throughout the repair market.”

Read the full letter here. 

###

Why is John Deere so opposed to letting farmers fix their stuff?

John Deere is trying to block the agricultural Right to Repair in Nebraska—which affects all of us, not just farmers. When farm equipment goes down in the middle of the season, it can cost farmers a harvest and the rest of us a meal. Everyone that eats has a horse in this race. 

And Deere is rigging the race. They have filled Nebraska’s unicameral legislature with their proxies attempting to block the passage of LB543, the Right to Repair for Agricultural Equipment. They are telling senators that Deere & Co. supports farmers repairing their equipment, but they don’t support the “right to modify” When pressed, they proclaim that farmers can already fix 98% of their equipment, so there isn’t a problem for legislators to address.  

Hogwash. Within the supposed 2% of repairs that Deere blocks are many problems that can take a machine down 100%. Fixing 98% of something rather than 100% is a farce.  Limp mode can be a death sentence for a crop. when a simple problem during key times takes the machine down 100%, not 98%. 

Plus, repair is not modification. Most farmers have no interest in doing anything with their tractor beyond the job it was designed to do—they just want it to be in good working order. So why is Deere bending the ears of nearly every Nebraskan senator, to keep farmers away from 2% of repairs? Why are they fighting 5 antitrust lawsuits ? What is Deere protecting so fiercely? 

It's likely that the answer is just money—hidden in all sorts of pockets in plain sight.  Repair in many industries is a high margin business, and monopolies on repair feed the margins.  A Virginia dealer told Farm Equipment magazine that service accounts for three times the net profit of equipment sales, even though it makes up just a sixth of equipment sales’ gross profit. 

Subscription revenue for Deere’s proprietary “Service Advisor” diagnostic software is undoubtedly high—one dealer sells the package online for $8500 for the first year (note the emphasis that this subscription provides diagnostic codes but will not authorize farmers to repair their own equipment). Without the ability for a farmer to buy an alternative set of diagnostic tools, it’s also a monopoly.  I suspect, as a former lessor, that Deere influences the used market for trade-ins around the world.

Not to mention that keeping repairs in house gives Deere a lock on data being harvested from every piece of equipment in real time. Many credit Deere’s stock rebound during the pandemic to their investment in “smart farming” equipment, including planters that pick the best spot to stick seeds based on past yields, and sprayers that have weed-destroying algorithms.  Blocking agricultural Right to Repair lets Deere keep a monopoly on the data that their new Chief Technology Officer manages.

Farmers want to use the modern tools that have so much promise to improve yields and reduce labor costs. But while Deere reaps the profits of these tools, farmers are left holding the bag. For the sake of a repair and data monopoly, Deere is happy to pay lobbyists and lawyers. They’re happy to ignore some angry farmers. That anger, though, is justified: When a farm must wait weeks for a Deere repair technician, that can mean a lost harvest—and a lost harvest can mean a lost business. 

It’s up to all of us—the farmers and the eaters—to make sure that farmers are restored true ownership of their equipment so that they can keep their equipment working 100% of the time, not just 98%. They’ve bought their tractors. Why can’t they repair them? Tell your legislators anywhere in the world that you want them to pass Right to Repair legislation now.