U.S. to "clarify" WTO commitment

According to this AFP article, the United States has now "clarified" that it is not bound by the recent WTO ruling where the trade body reiterated its view that the country is bound by trade rules to allow the nation of Antigua access to its gambling markets:

"[Deputy United States Trade Representative John]Veroneau said that the US commitment to free trade in "recreational services" was not intended to included Internet gambling, which did not exist at the time.

The commitment to opening up recreational services "doesn't explicitly include gambling nor does it necessary exclude it," Veroneau said.

"It didn't occur to us that this could include gambling until Antigua brought this case in 2003."

"Clearly that was an oversight in the drafting," he said.

"The process we are starting today would allow us to clarify our schedule and make clear that we did not intend and do not intend to have gambling included in our services agreement."

Not having read the actual agreement it is hard for me to comment except to say that the term "recreational services" sounds like it was adopted precisely because it is broad enough to create a normative way of treating new services in the future that have not been invented at the time the agreement was implemented.

But there is a broader reason why Veroneau is being deeply disingenuous when he pleads that the U.S. signed on to these agreements ignorantly. I think the most important thing to keep in mind, is that from my understanding, countries in the WTO are allowed to ban certain kinds of trade that they already ban within their own country. This rule was included to allow less liberal trading partners the ability to keep out what they viewed were some less desirable American products (liquor being a good example). This was allowed provided the country did not then go and allow the sale of liquor within the country. In other words, you are not allowed to save the liquor market for your domestic producers while shutting out all foreign competition.

Obviously the United States does not ban gambling. As a matter of fact, in the law that was passed last year penalizing banks for processing money transfers between customers and internet sites, Congress specifically inserted language in the law exempting certain gambling activities (horse racing and fantasy sports come to mind) for the law.