Antigua says no settlement in sight for longstanding dispute with the US regarding WTO

Antigua and Barbuda has expressed that it may take “another generation” to resolve the longstanding dispute with the United States regarding the World Trade Organization (WTO) ruling that favored the Caribbean island. The country acknowledged that any hope for a near-term settlement appears to be fading, with progress on the matter remaining elusive after many years.

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Antigua and Barbuda had taken its case against the US to the WTO in 2003 regarding its online gambling industry following Washington’s efforts to prosecute foreign-based suppliers of online gambling services.

St John’s had argued that the North American country had violated its General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS), a WTO treaty that governs international trade in services and was established in 1995 as part of the Uruguay Round negotiations.

The WTO ultimately ruled in favor of Antigua and Barbuda and awarded the country the right to suspend US$21 million annually in intellectual property rights held by US firms.

In 2018, Antigua and Barbuda’s Ambassador to the United States, Sir Ronald Sanders, said his country had lost US$315 million so far, equivalent to more than a quarter of its annual gross domestic product and less than 0.1 per cent of the US economy.

Although the WTO awarded Antigua and Barbuda the right to use trade sanctions to recoup its losses, it opted for a settlement and to date has not received any payment from the United States.

Chief of Staff in the Office of the Prime Minister, Ambassador Lionel ‘Max’ Hurst, speaking on the Observer Radio, said he does not hold out any hope for a settlement of the matter soon, particularly with a new administration taking office on Monday.

He said he figures any “agreement with the United States at this point is beginning to fade as one administration leaves and another takes hold of that office of the president of the United States”.

“Although the State Department is not the major actor in this particular controversy. It is the US Trade Representative Office that is the deciding force, and thus far we have not been able to persuade them.

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“I think it will take us another generation almost to get that done. The United States is not moving…the United States is not as generous as it once was,” he said, recalling that when the deep water harbour was built in 1967-68, it was undertaken largely with “US money” coming from “US Eximbank loaned to a non-independent Antigua and Barbuda”.

In 2018, the then US ambassador Dennis Shea told the WTO meeting that Antigua and Barbuda had made “extreme demands” and monetary payments were not provided for under the rules. The United States had made repeated offers to settle the row, to no avail, he said then.

But Sanders said that none of the US offers amounted to even one per cent of the damage caused, noting that “the WTO dispute settlement was conceived as a system where all members, irrespective of their size, would have their rights protected,” he said.

International trade observers say the dispute exemplifies the potential for market access commitments to have unexpected and undesirable consequences. They say the potential for suspending intellectual property rights as a retaliatory measure may increase the leverage of small countries in trade disputes with large countries, but the implementation and management of such a suspension may be difficult and costly.

“We are moving forward, the United States is still our most important trading partner and we intend to continue to massage that relationship and that at some point the US will relent and provide us with the monies that they owe us,” Hurst told radio listeners.