Developments in US vs WTO re: online gambling

bonkey

There's articles dotted about the place, but here's a typical one from the Beeb.

Anyway...the upshot is that the WTO has sided with Antigua & Barbuda against the US, and ruled that the US laws limiting payment methods for online gambling are in breach of the trade laws of the WTO.

Ots premature to conclude anything right now, seeing as the US hasn't exhausted its appeals processes....so no decision is really anything more than provisional...but this could be a really interesting one to keep an eye on, especially if it looks like the WTO will uphold its ruling on appeal....putting the WTO and the Christian Values Administration on a collision course.

jc

Memnoch

the bush administration has been messing with trade wars with europe in its first term already. What does the US have against the barbados and antiga anyways? is it a moralistic objection to gambling? in which case why don't they shut down Las Vegas first ? :P

bonkey

At the risk of sounding condescending....the article I linked to answers all three of those questions...so maybe if you read it....

jc

SkepticOne

Moves like this will increase the tendency for the US to negotiate bilateral trade deals with various countries and blocs eventually bypass the WTO altogether. This will be to the detriment of smaller, poorer countries.

The WTO needs to realise that without large economies like the US on board it is nothing.

shotamoose

So, if the appeal fails the upshot is that Antigua and Bermuda can impose trade sanctions on the US? Gee, I bet the Americans are quaking ...

This bit's quite funny though:

The WTO panel had turned down a request by the US to use a "public morals clause" in WTO rules to keep the ban, one trade official told Reuters

.

DadaKopf

Sounds good. Maybe Iraq should convene a WTO dispute panel to object to the massive subsidies the US is piling into Iraq's occup... I mean reconstruction. Hehe.

Imposter

SkepticOne wrote:

Moves like this will increase the tendency for the US to negotiate bilateral trade deals with various countries and blocs eventually bypass the WTO altogether. This will be to the detriment of smaller, poorer countries.

The WTO needs to realise that without large economies like the US on board it is nothing.

The US signed up to the WTO so it should take the rough with the smooth. Similar to their 'only if it suits us' attitude to the UN if you ask me.

Certain US states allow gambling. So to say they are protecting children, the poor or anybody else from the evils of gambling makes no sense. What they might be doing is trying to protect the gambling businesses (and related tourism) that exists in their economy.

The only grounds that might make sense would be the money laundering issue but that's hardly impossible to do without resorting to online gambling.

Anyways it's nice that such a free country that trusts it's citizens to decide what they want to do themselves. :rolleyes:

growler

it does seem like a rather futile exercise anyway, the gaming companies would just shift their servers to somewhere else, the lads in Antigua lose their jobs and someother lot ( maybe here) get the jobs and american kids run up loads on their dads' credit cards and they can start all over again.

Of course it helps keep up the US's dismissive foreign policy stance and no doubt makes some well connected lawyers more cash.