EnSenator John Thune (R-SD) plans to introduce legislation that will require the inclusion of 5G telecoms network security issues in trade negotiations, Politico reports. That could immediately cause friction with the U.K. which, as outlined in Panjiva’s research of Jan. 31, is in the midst of its own 5G roll out as well as trade negotiations with the U.S.
The U.S. has to address its own imports of telecoms network equipment at the same time, with investments starting to pick up. Panjiva data shows imports of cellular base stations increased by 36.2% year over year in 2019 to reach $507 million.
There’s a lot further to go. Total imports of cellular equipment since 1992 have reached $17.5 billion. THe prior peaks include $3.15 billion of imports in the 2010-2012 period during the 4G/LTE roll-out and $2.71 billion during the 2006-2008 roll out of 3G.
Source: Panjiva
The need to invest raises the question as to where it imports will come from. Prior rounds of investment have been led by Europe including shipments by European manufacturers Ericsson and Nokia’s Alcatel Lucent which accounted for 41.4% of imports during the 4G/LTE roll out.
U.S. imports until recently however have been dominated by China, representing 53.3% of the total in the past three years despite the application of tariffs under the section 301 program.
There’s been a rotation in 2019 however to imports from Asia ex-China, which represented 40.4% of the total in 2019. Panjiva’s seaborne data shows those shipments have include Wimax systems from Samsung and base station systems from KMW.
Source: Panjiva
