The Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) on the 27th (local time) publicly called Korea's network usage fees one of the "world's most outrageous trade barriers" on social media.
On this day, USTR ranked Korea's network usage fees fourth among 10 entries in its "Craziest foreign trade barriers facing U.S. exporters" series posted on its official X (formerly Twitter) account. In the post, USTR wrote, "No country in the world charges its internet service providers network usage fees for transmitting internet traffic. Except Korea." In the first post of the series, it said, "You won't believe how hard some countries work to block U.S. exports," and guided readers to check other cases.
Network usage fees are charges that content providers pay separately to telecom companies when sending data over networks. Korea's three telecom companies—SK Broadband, KT, and LG Uplus—have argued that as traffic surges, U.S. big tech firms such as Netflix and Google should share the expense. In contrast, U.S. big tech counters that subscribers already pay for internet access, so additional charges amount to double billing, and tiered fees based on traffic violate the principle of "net neutrality."
USTR has regularly treated network usage fees as a staple trade agenda item. On Mar. 31, the 2026 National Trade Estimate Report on Foreign Trade Barriers (NTE) released by USTR identified network usage fees as a services-sector barrier, along with Korea's platform regulation bills, restrictions on transferring location-based data overseas, and payment authentication and security standards. The Computer & Communications Industry Association (CCIA) criticized in comments submitted to USTR that Korea's "sender-pays" regime shows harms such as degraded network performance, increased latency, higher bandwidth expenses, and dampened investment in local infrastructure.
Considering this, President Lee Jae-myung agreed in Nov. last year with U.S. President Donald Trump in a U.S.-Korea leaders' joint fact sheet to ensure that U.S. corporations do not face discrimination or unnecessary barriers in the digital services sector, including network usage fees and online platform regulation.
Alongside Korea, the post also listed Türkiye's ban on imports of U.S. rice, Japan's partial opening to imports of Russian seafood, Nigeria's ban on imports of U.S. beef, and Australia's regulation of video streaming operators.