WASHINGTON-President Clinton’s renewal last week of a potent trade weapon-known as Super
301-could become a vehicle for prying open markets closed to U.S. wireless technologies.
Super 301, a multistep
process that calls for bilateral negotiations on trade disputes but can lead to retaliatory action, was used previously by
the United States to leverage Japan into relaxing barriers to its telecommunications, satellite and supercomputer
sectors.
“Super 301 and Title VII have been critical to the successful conclusion of trade agreements and the
elimination of foreign trade barriers,” said U.S. Trade Representative Charlene Barshefsky. “Given the
state of the world economy, it is now more important than ever that we maintain these tools.”
There will be a
push to include in the process that Code Division Multiple Access technology has been excluded from Europe,
according to a person closely involved in 3G lobbying here.
The Clinton administration and various members of
Congress are concerned with the potential lockout of U.S.-developed 3G CDMA (cdma2000) technology in Western
Europe, which today uses Global System for Mobile communications technology.
Intertwined in that debate is a
controversy over 3G standardization. A new European Union law directs its 15 member states to deploy a version of
3G CDMA, called wideband CDMA.
Qualcomm Inc., which is aggressively lobbying to converge cdma2000 and
W-CDMA, said W-CDMA was engineered to keep the 3G equipment market closed to technology from the United
States and elsewhere.
Backers of W-CDMA technology reply that 3G CDMA harmonization will result in a
degraded technology.
Some believe the market access and standardization issues are separate, and should be kept
that way. But others say the two are inherently, if not politically, linked.
U.S. officials are pushing for multiple,
market-driven 3G wireless standards, but realize the standardization process can be manipulated into market
barriers.
It will become clearer in coming months whether the United States will use Super 301 to further U.S.
wireless interests abroad.
USTR on March 31 will submit a report to Congress comprehensively cataloging trade
barriers facing U.S. products and services in the global market.
On April 30, USTR will distill from the report for
Congress priority trade problems. For the next three months, the U.S. government will attempt to reach agreements on
trade policies it deems unfair and discriminatory.
For those unresolved trade disputes, USTR will initiate Super 301
investigations ranging from six months to 18 months. After the investigations, if there is still no agreement among
parties, the United States then would consider taking retaliatory action. That could include slapping heavy tariffs on
imports of countries with which the United States has unresolved trade differences.
If the United States decides to
challenge the EU over the absence of CDMA technology, it will be obliged to consider other wireless technology trade
barriers. For example, only CDMA technology is permitted in Korea.
“What we want is parity in terms of
market access,” said Mickey Gardner, counsel for the Universal Wireless Communications Consortium. UWCC
members include BellSouth Corp., AT&T Corp. and SBC Communications Inc., users of TDMA and other
technologies.
