U.S. Standing Firm On Online Gambling

Though facing billions of dollars in claims, The U.S. is standing firm in its position on online gambling. The U.S. maintains that the best way to resolve the ongoing dispute with Antigua and Barbuda is the withdrawal from the World Trade Organization trade obligations to grant access to internet gambling companies.

A trade official in the office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) stated that the U.S. thinks that this will be the best way of resolving this issue.

“We are trying to clarify, by using Article 21 of the GATS agreement (General Agreement on Trade in Services) that our obligations should not extend to gambling,” he said.

A stipulation of Article 21 is that the U.S. must reach a settlement agreement with all WTO members that filed a claim against them. After the WTO ruled against the U.S. in May, Antigua and Barbuda asked all the 150 members of the WTO to join in filing a claim against the U.S., seven nations answered; The European Union, Australia, Canada, Costa Rica, India, Macao and Japan.

In an unofficial interview the trade official said, “We are actively working to negotiate, under Article 21, with all of the WTO members which made claims, and there are eight of them, including Antigua. We believe we can reach an expeditious solution using this procedure.

“We’ve been quite pleased, to date, that the members who have made claims seem to be approaching this issue with a sense of seriousness and realism and that they generally seem determined to reach a solution; and we continue to believe that this Article 21 process is really the path that is most likely to lead to a resolution of this issue.”

This statement conflicts with that of Mark Mendel, Antigua and Barbuda’s WTO attorney who said the meeting was unproductive and went as far as accusing the U.S. team has calling the meeting just to sat they had officially met with the two countries.

September 22, is when the Article 22 is set to conclude though extensions are possible. The USTR says that they would like a resolution negotiated by that time.

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