Antigua Continues Full Court Press

The small island nation of Antigua and Barbuda is intent on remaining a major thorn in the United States’ side.  Already seeking more than $3.4 billion in annual sanctions from the U.S. for not complying with a World Trade Organization (WTO) ruling that its restrictions on online gambling were illegal, Antigua is now seeking even more.

The claim, which has yet to be officially filed, will reportedly seek at least as much as the first, this time in conjunction with United States Trade Representative’s (USTR) announcement earlier this year that it is withdrawing its gambling commitments from its General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) schedule.  This removal of commitments is akin to the U.S. “taking its ball and going home” simply because it is not having fun in the free trade game, even though it had agreed to the rules years ago.  While the U.S. did not exclude remote gambling from its GATS schedule when it was developed in 1993, it now claims that it did not foresee internet gambling and feels that the failure to exclude remote gambling was an error.  Nevermind that remote gambling did exist in some incarnations back then and other countries remembered to remove it from their GATS schedules.

Antigua is not the first country and may not be the last to file hefty claims against the United States.  The European Union has already filed a $15 billion claim.