Why the USTR is ignoring Mexico's 49% foreign ownership restriction imposed against international telcos is beyond me...
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http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/business/14279534.htm
Posted on Thu, Apr. 06, 2006email thisprint this
Administration singles out trade barriers in global phone market
WASHINGTON (AP) - The United States took aim at high mobile phone charges in Germany, Japan, Mexico and Switzerland and sizable licensing requirements in China in a new report Thursday detailing barriers American telecommunication companies face in doing business abroad.
``Barriers in foreign telecommunication markets negatively impact U.S. telecommunications manufacturers and operators as well as U.S. consumers and any U.S. business that does business abroad,'' U.S. Trade Representative Rob Portman said in issuing the annual review.
He said the barriers were also harmful to the foreign countries that erect them because they adversely affect the ability of those nations to reap the benefits from competition in telecommunication.
Portman said his office would continue to monitor the practices singled out in the telecommunications review in an effort to have them modified or eliminated.
That review could involve bringing cases against offending countries before the World Trade Organization, but Portman did not indicate any practices where he believed WTO cases should be filed.
The review said that Germany, Japan, Mexico and Switzerland were charging ``excessively high'' fees for certain mobile phone operations. The report also cited Germany, India and Singapore for restricting access of foreign companies to the use of leased land lines.
China was cited for what the report called a long-standing problem of imposing an excessive capitalization requirement for foreign telecommunication companies seeking to do business in China.
The report said China required a foreign company to have $240 million in capital in order to obtain a license to offer basic telecommunication services where the similar requirement in many other countries was just $1 million.
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U.S. Trade Representative: http://www.ustr.gov
In a sign of maturity, today Vicente Fox is focusing his energies NOT on pushing the US to reform its immigration laws but rather for Mexico to reign in its near phone monopoly's high prices which he said hurt Mexico's global competitiveness:
http://www.eluniversal.com.mx/notas/342099.html
The article's in Spanish but you can take my word for it if you like.