Well, who would have thought it? The US, it appears, is so intent on denying its citizens freedom of choice when it comes to playing online bingo and other forms of online gambling that it is willing to throw the entire WTO system into doubt over it.

The announcement by the US that it will unilaterally modify its original World Trade Organisation agreements to remove online gambling is nothing short of opening a Pandora’s box of mischief. Just when you thought they couldn’t do anything more stupid than the introduction of one of the internets worst laws (UIGEA), they top themselves with this cynical little ploy. They must really fear online bingo and gambling to want to face having to renegotiate a whole plethora of agreements on service related industries.

But then the US has money and time to burn. Here’s a quote from US Trade Representative spokesman John Veroneau: “We did not intend and do not intend to have gambling as part of our services agreement. What we are doing is just clarifying our commitments.”

Fine! Despite other countries managing to figure this out and exclude gambling from their commitments at the time of negotiation, the US is now happy to put in jeopardy hard-won agreements that some of the smaller developing nations need so badly to lift themselves out of poverty.

If you think I’m overreacting, think of it this way: “How does the US justify itself before small nations who rely on the spirit and the rule of law in order to take part in world trade when the Big Boys can simply walk away from their commitments to suit their own agendas?�

Or maybe we just don’t care?

Written by John Witherspoon - Play bingo online at http://bingostreet.com/ and read online bingo news.

This entry was posted on Friday, May 11th, 2007 at 6:55 am and is filed under Online Bingo. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.