US-Asia Fair Market Alliance launches to defend rules-based trade and investment across the Indo-Pacific

The US-Asia Fair Market Alliance (US-Asia FMA) announced its official launch today. The group was established to advocate for predictable, rules-based markets throughout the Indo-Pacific region. The Alliance is focused on protecting U.S. national security interests by ensuring American firms can compete on a level playing field across the region. 

This initiative comes as U.S. companies increasingly voice concerns about regulatory unpredictability, selective enforcement, and inconsistent treatment – factors that threaten U.S. national security, investment and established supply chains.

US-Asia FMA focuses on promoting transparent governance, non-discriminatory regulatory practices, trusted economic partnerships aligned with U.S. strategic interests, and supply chain resilience. The Alliance will work to educate policymakers, elevate third-party research and analysis, and encourage business climates that allow U.S. firms to compete on a level playing field.

"Rules-based trade only works when the rules are clear and the referees are consistent," said Matt Mowers, Executive Director of the US-Asia Fair Market Alliance. "Fair treatment strengthens alliances. When our partners in the Indo-Pacific seek U.S. investment and innovation, our companies need to see true equal treatment under the law. Unpredictable or politically-based enforcement threatens investor confidence and U.S. national security by undermining the long-term security of our supply chains."

The Alliance highlighted recent, widely reported signs of strain faced by U.S. firms in the region, citing renewed trade tensions and regulatory uncertainty in China, data localization mandates and platform restrictions affecting U.S. technology firms in India and Japan, as well as intensifying debate over competition enforcement practices in South Korea. According to the US-Asia FMA, when regulatory agencies implement rules inconsistently or in a discriminatory manner such challenges function as de facto non-tariff barriers.

As one of its first acts, US-Asia FMA joined peer organizations to co-sign a letter urging USTR and U.S. policymakers to make discriminatory digital trade practices in Asia, especially in Japan, India, China, and South Korea, a priority in forthcoming Section 301 investigations, and to respond with clear consequences for the non-tariff barriers to trade impacting U.S. tech firms in the region. The coalition also called on USTR to hold South Korea to its November 2025 Korea Strategic Trade and Investment Deal commitments and use the structural excess capacity investigation to assess the full scope of these barriers.

Co-signers include: American Action Forum; Americans for Tax Reform; Center for Individual Freedom; Citizens Against Government Waste; Competitive Enterprise Institute; Consumer Choice Center; Innovation Economy Alliance; Institute for Policy Innovation; National Taxpayers Union; Pelican Institute; Small Business & Entrepreneurship Council; and Taxpayers Protection Alliance, among others.

US-Asia FMA will highlight what it sees as a core test for fair markets: whether regulatory systems provide clear notice, due process, and proportionate enforcement. The Alliance's focus includes digital markets where rules may diverge from global expectations and where regulators can use tools such as platform mandates or data localization requirements, which force companies to store data in-country even when it raises cost and risk.

US-Asia FMA's initial efforts will focus on its four key priorities: transparency and good governance, non-discriminatory regulatory practices, trusted strategic economic partnerships, and supply chain resilience. The Alliance will emphasize the development of practical, measurable standards that lawmakers and regulators can effectively implement and enforce.