ABSTRACT
A cornerstone of the Tokyo Round negotiations was the achievement of several codes of conduct designed to limit national discretion in the imposition of nontariff barriers (NTB). The progress of US-Japanese bilateral discussions in clarifying and simplifying Japanese standards practices, reducing procurement discrimination in telecommunications, and opening up Japanese government funded research and development projects for US participation is noteworthy. When Japan liberalized its telecommunications industry, there were no performance criteria established in the agreements reached by the US Trade Representative with the government of Japan. Several government officials feared that such a sanguine view of NTBs would lead to a repeat of the problems faced by US semiconductor manufacturers in the early 1970s. Some remedies were suggested for the problems created in the past by ineffective government-industry relations in the face of NTBs. Some US officials believe that government has been ahead of industry in identifying NTBs.
