The real threat to our 5G future: President Trump's trade policies

The biggest barrier for US leadership in 5G: the Trump Administration’s own misguided trade policies. Indeed, the administration’s trade war with China threatens to increase the costs of wireless infrastructure by hundreds of millions of dollars at a critical moment in the race to 5G.  It’s a classic case of the right hand not knowing what the left is doing.

Levying new tariffs on everything from semiconductors to modems to routers is not going to make it any easier to deploy 5G wireless service. In fact, it will make it much more expensive. Much of the network gear associated with 5G deployment that is developed and used in the United States but assembled or produced in China will be assessed special tariffs of up to 25 percent. Add that up and you have a significant tax on the deployment of 5G infrastructure. The Federal Communications Commission is eerily silent on the impact that these tariffs would have on our 5G wireless goals. Proponents of tariffs may argue that they will boost the US economy, but those benefits will be paltry compared to the extra costs tariffs will require to deploy 5G, or the cost of losing our technological edge to our economic competitors.