USCIB filed comments on October 25 for the annual National Trade Estimate (NTE) report to highlight significant barriers that American companies continue to face with regards to exports of goods, services and U.S. foreign direct investment. The comprehensive comments included barriers faced by U.S. companies in over twenty countries, including in Brazil, China and India.

According to USCIB Vice President for ICT Policy Barbara Wanner, the comments urged the U.S. Trade Representative to encourage Brazil to promote an international, interoperable policy framework for the Internet of Things (IoT) and machine-to-machine (M2M) solutions that includes M2M permanent roaming, among other things.

“Many IOT and M2M solutions will only reach their optimal scale if they can operate around the globe,” said Wanner. Monitors on airline cargo or shipping containers must be able to operate wherever their freight travels. Automakers sell vehicles across many different countries and operators drive vehicles across national borders for commercial and personal purposes; automakers and customers alike need a single communications platform to support their connected vehicles.

“The Brazilian government should modify the regulatory framework to support providers of IoT and M2M services and devices and allow them to choose between various available options for numbering and device management (including permanent M2M roaming), rather than imposing a single, one-size alternative for all cases,” added Wanner.

With regards to China, USCIB’s submission focused on China’s WTO compliance record in services, particularly China’s indiscriminate filtering and blocking of online services. China’s expansive definition of value-added services, high capitalization requirements for basic telecommunications services, lack of an independent regulator, and restrictions that specifically apply to the non-Chinese companies for provision of value-added services remain key outstanding issues for U.S. business.

Finally, while India has accelerated broadband deployment, USCIB’s comments stressed that it must also implement policies that foster an innovative environment through predictable, progressive and technology-neutral policies that are compatible with global standards.

“It is important to keep encouraging the Indian government to support further market liberalization and to remove remaining market access barriers,” said Wanner. “India should be urged to continue its efforts to provide legal and regulatory policy certainty both in the development of a body of clear and consistent laws and regulations, and in the transparent and equitable application and enforcement of those laws and regulations. Unfortunately, in recent years the government of India has implemented a number of policies that constitute significant market access barriers to U.S. companies, including in data localization, remote access policy and cloud computing.”