The role and significance of data have evolved over the years for industries and countries alike.

The statement of the EU-US Trade and Tech Council did not mention China by name. But the conclusion of the meeting signals that prospects for a transatlantic "united front" against China might be overblown from the start. Here are the takeaways of the latest effort to shore up trade and investment dynamics between two superpowers.

The vastly differing rate at which developed and developing countries have been able to procure COVID-19 vaccines has exposed major inequities in global vaccine access. In an effort to boost developing countries access to COVID-19 vaccines, some have proposed that the World Trade Organization (WTO) grant a broad IP waiver to enable more widespread vaccine production. A proposal from India and South Africa requesting a WTO waiver from certain international IP standards (TRIPS provisions) applying to COVID-19 vaccines and related health products is under consideration.

The exhaustion of globalization has increased steadily in recent years. The Covid-19 shock reached the world at the previous height of the systemic conflict between Chinese state capitalism and the increasingly divided transatlantic West. The European Union is largely sluggish in its response. In Europe, on the other hand, the nation-state hierarchies show themselves to be able to act.