RSSUS to drop WTO Internet gambling objection, open new markets to EU
By Scott M. Fulton, III | Published December 17, 2007, 4:41 PM
The Internet gambling industry was dealt another lousy hand this morning in Geneva, as trade negotiators decided they're okay with US objections to Internet gambling as long as it takes measures that could privatize the Post Office.
Under an international agreement which took effect in 2000, nations agreed to suspend tariffs against one another in order to open each other's markets to not only goods but services. This was the General Agreement on Tariffs and Services (GATS), and the US is one of the nations bound by that agreement.
One of the categories of services under the GATS purview is gambling, which is a facet of our economy that Congressional Republicans and the President have both moved to shut down. The last Congress passed a measure which the President signed, effectively rendering illegal any transaction between a bank or financial institution and a known gambling service provider anywhere in the world. Meanwhile, US trade negotiators announced this country was unilaterally withdrawing from its GATS commitments to the World Trade Organization -- a move the WTO declared "illegal" last March, though it isn't clear whose laws the Organization was referring to.
Last month, European Union Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson came to Washington to demand that the US lift its trade ban on Internet gambling, calling it unfair and contrary to the US' GATS commitments. This morning, Comm. Mandelson's office announced it was happy with the US' alternative suggestion: It will open up more of its other markets to EU participation, in exchange for leaving the ban intact.
"While the US is free to decide how to best respond to legitimate public policy concerns relating to Internet gambling," read a statement this afternoon by the Trade Commission's spokesperson, "discrimination against EU or other foreign companies should be avoided." That's a roundabout way of saying the discrimination will be avoided by deciding to avoid the topic altogether: Internet gambling is no longer one of the categories covered by GATS, under the terms of a new agreement this morning.
GATS was designed to be a kind of flexible system, giving nations the right to impose some tariffs within certain limits. The degree to which they refrain from imposing tariffs is considered a member nation's "liberalism," or its relative level of openness. The US has been, and will remain, closed on the subject of Internet gambling; it's just decided instead to open up the doors wider on other topics, in response to Comm. Mandelson's objections.
Which markets are those? According to both sides, the US has agreed to open up opportunities in storage and warehousing services, testing and analysis services, outsourced R&D, and most critically of all, postal and courier services.
The US Trade Representative's office this morning was careful not to make it sound like the US was changing course, even though in at least some areas, it was doing a complete 180.
"The agreement involves commitments to maintain our liberalized markets for warehousing services, technical testing services, research and development services and postal services relating to outbound international letters," reads a spokesperson statement this morning. Here, the term "maintain our liberalized markets" means to agree to levels of liberalization to which the US had not previously agreed.
It's the postal services concession which could eventually generate the most sparks. The European Union has been demanding a more open market approach that would help its companies compete here. Opponents of this approach claim that the EU is seeking to compel the US to privatize its postal service, in order to enable couriers here to adopt fair market rates across the board without government control.
Whether this spells the beginning of the end of the Post Office or not, the near-term beneficiary of this morning's concessions could very well be DHL, the courier service that acquired Airborne Express a few years ago, and whose majority owner is Deutsche Post. A reduction or elimination of tariffs for foreign courier services could help DHL reduce its rates here, potentially across the board.
But the losers in all of this are the remaining Internet gambling services in Europe -- those that managed to survive the pounding they received in International stock markets once the SAFE Ports Act was successfully railroaded into passage here.
This afternoon, the political organization Public Citizen announced its opposition to the agreement, saying that only Congress can legislate which parts of GATS apply to the US and which do not, and not the Executive Branch to which the US Trade Representative belongs. In a statement, Public Citizen also added, "Depending on the scope of commitments, the notion of putting the US postal services and safety testing under WTO jurisdiction also could prove explosive in Congress."
The only reason why US banned internet gamble is because US government is not the beneficiary (US is not getting any tax from the income gambling site generates). Of course, the government is telling us that reason they are doing this for us.
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|So we outsource more jobs to keep internet gambling banned? What an a** backwards policy.
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|Okay, so... the US is substituting one wrong with another; one unconstitutional action with another.
Simply put: the basic legality of the US ban on internet gambling is still under question on an international level. So is the "compromise" of the Executive branch going beyond its boundaries in ratifying the application of the US Constitution's basic tenants which, in another paragraph, establishes said Executive branch to begin with.
Conclusion: hmm, Dubya is above the law, above International agreements, and thus untouchable in every regard in this world. In other words, he is God and this is his World; he can do as he pleases because he owns the damn thing.
No wonder he also feels he has the rights to the white house visitor logs of conservative religious leaders -- even though it is distinctly both a Secret Service and National Archives responsibility.
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|"Conclusion: hmm, Dubya is above the law, above International agreements, and thus untouchable in every regard in this world. In other words, he is God and this is his World; he can do as he pleases because he owns the damn thing."
It's logical to deduce what you have based on your obvious hatred of the man, but if you think about this logically, you would realise that this is not a 'Dubya' issue. As it states in the article:
"The last Congress passed a measure which the President signed, effectively rendering illegal any transaction between a bank or financial institution and a known gambling service provider anywhere in the world." (emph. added)
Congress actually passed the law, not 'Dubya'.
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|Well, Dubya could've vetoed, sent bill back for editing.
But you're right it's been the fault of both parties for a long time now.
Spitzer in NY(Dem) hounded online casinos, both legal and illegal... as well as racetracks.
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|Wow, the US is doing something right for a change by not loosening their internet gambling laws. Why would any country want these "Internet gambling services" leeching money from their citizens? These guys are nothing but parasites and of course they're going to whine about not being able to dip their hands in the US honey pot. I say let them all go out of business and burn in hell.
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|Headline: US to drop WTO Internet gambling objection, open new markets to EU
Quote comment: Wow, the US is doing something right for a change by not loosening their internet gambling laws. Why would any country want these "Internet gambling services" leeching money from their citizens? These guys are nothing but parasites and of course they're going to whine about not being able to dip their hands in the US honey pot. I say let them all go out of business and burn in hell.
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Reply: YOU must not be a gambler, or only a very simplistic one at best.
I WANT INTERNET GAMBLING 'LEECHES' TO DO BUSINESS WITH ME AS I PLEASE.
And my government of the people, for the people & by the people has NO right to curtail this activity-- esp. when the majority of our population does not favor banning such an activity!!!
#1. Most foreign bet takers are not leeches, but duly licensed by their governments in Europe. They trade in their Stock Exchanges, paying a cut to individual sports industries(horseracing for one), taxes that go towards education & whatever, etc....just like our counterparts. Yes, some leeches have filled the void-- just like rumrunners & moonshiners.
#2. If our government chooses to be idiotic & hypocritic by not allowing domestic entities to offer me business, then it needs to allow foreign entities to do so, at the very least.
As it is now, we're even disobeying the Constitutional partion re individual states restricting / taxing interstate commerce.
If you follow horseracing, then you know that we've descended into a crazy situation where residents of some states can bet into some states but not others, some states accept bets from residents of some states only.
Our government(at all levels) needs to license & regulate this area: allowing traffic both ways while collecting both for itself & the sport organization involved, whatever its share of 'fair fees generally accepted by the industry' is-- rather than the present situation akin to the Alcohol Prohibition Era: collectively we take in no fees & taxes, plus individually we are often cheated by unscrupulous & unregulated bet takers... all the while ignoring such an economic bonanza of potentially over a TRIllion a year.
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|So I guess since over in Malaysia where they like 9 year old girls to have sex with, they have child porn websites that cost money to join. So we should allow child porn to be legal in the U.S. because it is legal in Malaysia ?
This is the United States and I do not think that we should alow the EU or any other country to establish our moral laws. Yes I think Internet Gambling in the U.S. should be decided by laws of the U.S. not the E.U.
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|The citizens of the US are Free, in theory anyway, to live their lives as they choose without church ladies, or whiny hand wringers demanding the authority to fix everybody else's lives to match their vision of perfection.
Church ladies and whiny hand wringers are not usually much to worry about until they get authorities with guns to force you to live the "right way."
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|Firstly they do not do that in Malaysia ... they are a free democracy, oh and they can gamble, but far be it from me to accuse an American of thinking every country which isn't America must be a hell hole - they can generally gamble atleast, well, except with those states in the Middle East which I assume you'll be bombing tommorow anyways so ...
The point isn't whats legal in the E.U. should be legal in America but why don't you FREE citizens have the ability to gamble your hard-earned cash away?
I thought America was the land of freedom, control to do what you want with your live & money? No?
Is it really freedom to do what the Church Elders aprove of?
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|We are free to do with our money. Internet gambling is no different than buying products from oversea? They provide a services (by hosting), we pay for a fee. That's about it.
Let's put it this way, if this is wrong, then I don't see how the government spending billions over is consider "right".
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|Nice, prejudicial comment generalizing an entire population-- you're really showing morals... & smarts as well.
BTW name another free democracy which disallows gambling.
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|has nothing to do with church. It about the US making there own laws. not the EU making laws for the US
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|how is it generalizing the intire population. So the entire US population are internet gamblers?. The point is the US makes there own laws not the EU...........
sorry?!
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|you can gamble in the US. ive played the slots at dover downs.........
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|Wow!!! Yippee!!!!
I mean from a professional gambler's side.
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|Any Malaysian reading that would be offended.
I'd say 80+% of internet users have gambled somewhere, if not online.
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|Any Malaysian reading that would be offended.
its true !
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|US needs better laws, i'll take all the help we can get.
Not everything the EU does is wrong(even if the basic legal priciples they rely one are shaky at times)-- look how much better cellular and internet service(standard protocols!) and fees are over there....how they've reined in MS, Real Player(spyware, adware), etc.
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|The Post Office is just one more thing that the US government should not be running. What does mail have to do with government? Let it be privatized and compete for real with UPS, Fedex and DHL.
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|The Post Office is one of the original federal Government functions. Benjamin Franklin was the first Postmaster General even before this country had a Constitution.
Of course today a secure and reliable inter-state postal service is not as amazing as it was in 1775.
The real question is how does the WTO get to tell the USA to choose between a federal postal service and regulation of Internet gambling? When did we loose our sovereignty?
Now, I don't think that our Federal Government has the constitutional authority to block gambling on the Internet. But if someone is going to deprive us of our rights I would still prefer it be our elected representatives and not some world government.
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|"Now, I don't think that our Federal Government has the constitutional authority to block gambling on the Internet. But if someone is going to deprive us of our rights I would still prefer it be our elected representatives and not some world government."
Oh yeah, you said a mouthful, because those "elected representatives" have done so well in the past. *cough*patriotact*cough*iraqiwar*cough*
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|The point is a least I can call them and complain, campaign against them, and convince my neighbors to vote against them. But how do you slap back at the WTO?
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|Post office must be run by the government. Is it efficient? Some what. However if it is run by private organization, we will have to put like $5 per mail with lousy services. Airline anyone?
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|There's no chance. If the choice is to open internet gambling, or open the US postal service to foreign and private companies, I godamguarantee that the Postal Service will win. If only for the fact that the Postal Service is constitutionally established, there's no chance that the government wants to lose that. None. Forget it.
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|it wont come down to anything. the us doesn't like something so instead of complying with the laws it agreed to it just doesn't. and then instead of applying actual pressure the wto simply changes to rules to fit what the us wants based on a promise that they will end up breaking and just say **** off in the end anyways.
this is why the us doesn't respect the wto, its a joke.
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|USPS is a great money drain-- but i doubt the Feds would ever give it up... for security reasons, not after 9/11.
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