Editor's Note: This article is the eighth installment in an ongoing RANE series on the shifting patterns of global trade. The first installment provided a broad overview of the geopolitical and economic implications of these shifts. Other installments have examined trade patterns in the Americas , the Strait of Hormuz , Japan and South Korea , India , Turkey and ASEAN countries . Rising impediments to digital trade and cross-border data flows are leading to increasingly complex and costly regulations that could slow economic gains and potentially hinder global innovation, with smaller companies generally at greatest disadvantage. At least three distinct but related sets of data, cybersecurity and digital services regulations are increasingly impeding cross-border data flows, posing challenges to both traditional and digital trade, and effectively functioning as nontariff barriers.