US Trade Representative tests his verbal jujitsu out on the WTO

The US Trade Representative (USTR) spoke out yesterday against the compliance panel report that slammed the US for failing to bring its online gambling policies in line with previous WTO rulings. The new American argument is really something of a Trojan horse for the international body - the USTR now claims that the US will …

[Anonymous Coward]

Everybody knows...

not to enter into any kind of deal with the US. The Indians are still waiting for their beads to arrive and women are about as equal as those in Iran. Why anyone would anyone think that the US has changed their ways and become faithful partners is beyond me. Here's to all the lessons we learn from history.

[Ole Juul]

Old story

Qoute:

Americans detest all lies except lies spoken

in public or printed lies. - Ed Howe

[Chris]

Contract law?

Hey, neat, can I try this out with contract law next? "Well, judge, you see, you can't really base your decision on what the contract explicitly states. No, you must base your decision on what I *intended* when I signed it, not the document that I *actually* signed."

[Kevin Johnston]

Sounds Familiar

This shows all the elements of the Inland Revenues process for catching contractors. They ignored any contracts and produced a 'virtual' contract of their own to determine whether a contractor was liable for IR35 or not. Surprise surprise, most contractors were guilty even if they had on place real contracts where the wording clearly showed otherwise.

Bet this only works FOR government bodies and not against them.

[amanfromMars]

Putting your Money down on the Round Table

Take away Las Vegas and what has Nevada got to offer? Certainly very little to dream about.

Now, if Las Vegas and Hollywood got their act together, surely they could craft a Sublime Media Program for Administrative Purposes of Executive Office.

Something with a Creative Continuity of Script. Of course, the likelihood then is that they Lead from the Front, even though the Underground is at ITs Controls.

Seems like an Excellent IDer for a Change Paradigm.

[Ishkandar]

Me Injun say

White man speak with forked tongue.

So does this mean that can I just ignore anything I agreed to in Microsoft's EULAs on the grounds that I *didn't* actually agreed to them ??

[Dillon Pyron]

Why not horseracing?

Why not let them cover betting on horseracing? And produce legal documents for all winners? That would make them equivalent with US bookies.

[Anonymous Coward]

There was a dilbert cartoon

Where Dilbert wanted out of a contract from Dogbert because he didn't read it properly first time.

Oddly familiar.

[Ian Damage]

Two can play at that game..

The USA accuses China of being one of the greatest infringers of copyrighted material on the face of the planet.

Now, the chinese can turn around and legimately say "I am sorry, but here in China, our communist ideals mean that everyone is equal, and everything is owned by the State on behalf of its people. As such, all works belong to everyone, and any copyright infringement that happens only means people are stealing from themselves, and thus hurting noone."

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like the wood trade with Canada

Almost 2 years back, the US got told by the WTO that it's embargo and high import taxes were illegal, to stop imposing them and to re-imburse Canada the taxes it levied. Two years in and we have yet to have the taxes lifted, never mind reimbursed.

The US as never been a very good buisness partner, but since Bush is president, it's even worst.

[Eduard Coli]

US needs to be out of the WTO

The powers that be, the very, very rich in the US do not want US membership go up before constitutional challenge. Concessions made for membership in the WTO would be found unconstitutional.

Even so, while the majority of US citizens do not see any benefits from trade as negotiated through the WTO, while they have seen employment go offfshore and prices rise despite the fact that most of the everyday articles they use are being brought in from abroad.

Just say NO to the WTO!

[Andy Bright]

I think - but will obviously be corrected..

That when it comes to things like gambling - you know, stuff that can really do some damage to those with a tendency to get addicted to that sort of thing - then it really should be ok for a country to say "no thanks" when a business makes it a little too easy to access.

On the other hand that only applies if you have the same rule for domestic businesses - and this I think is where the US is having a few problems. That is they only seem to think that gambling online using a foreign bookie is dangerous. No doubt their own chaps give the money back if they think someone just spent the mortgage payment on a horse race.

We should be fair though, most countries are a little bit naughty when it comes to making stuff up to help politicos look good back home - but when you're called on it perhaps you should have a better answer than "when we said we'd sign up for fair trade practices with our international partners, we meant everything except online gambling."

It's sort of like signing up for the Geneva Conventions, then saying later that you didn't mean the bit about torture. Now who was called on that recently, it's right on the tip of my tongue?