Abstract

International competition in high-technology industry is beginning to influence U.S. public policy and will have some implications for the nature and scope of multilateral trade and investment discussions in the coming years. The pressures for change include a perceived need to maintain preeminence in the development and commercial application of advanced technology, and the threat to that effort from public sector support for advanced-technology enterprise in Japan and Western Europe. The near-term impact for the U.S. will likely be a gradual shift in the types of industries attracting public policy attention as well as changes in the traditional nature, scope, justification, and timing of appropriate policy responses. The international trade and investment issues in the era following the recently completed Tokyo round of talks of the General Agreement on Tariff and Trade organization will begin to shift away from tariffs and nontariff trade barriers and toward international differences in the appropriate economic role of government and toward building some degree of cross-national regulatory and legal harmony for international business.