US Trade Representative Mickey Kantor says the Motorola cellular phone dispute is a simple case of market access.
And on Tuesday he used the dispute, festering since 1989, as an excuse to revive a powerful trade sanction.
Any sanctions will only affect US$300 million of Japanese exports to the US - about one day's total.
Although Motorola feels it has been denied fair access, its version of events makes it clear the story is far from a simple case of evil Japanese denying innocent Americans their rights.
The story starts with the liberalisation of Japanese telecommunications in 1985. NTT, the monopoly-holder, was suddenly faced with two competitors - IDO and DDI.
Japan chose to award franchises in a most unusual way - by geography.
DDI won the franchise for the north and west of Japan but IDO won the lucrative Tokyo franchise. DDI chose to use a system built around Motorola technology. IDO chose to stick with the incompatible technology already used by NTT.