Business
Antigua & Barbuda seeking retaliatory sanctions against the United States
The tiny Caribbean nation of Antigua & Barbuda intends to pursue retaliatory sanctions against U.S. commercial services and intellectual property as part of its David vs. Goliath trade battle with the United States, the islands’ finance minister announced Sunday.
The Finance Minister of Antigua & Barbuda, Harold Lovell told The Associated Press that the tiny country of less than 90,000 people has tried unsuccessfully for years to negotiate a “fair settlement” with the United States. It accuses its neighbor to the north of hobbling its fragile economy by banning Americans from placing online bets with gambling operators, including licensed online casinos based in the twin-island nation.
“As a small country, it is not our intention to have a fight with the United States. But we believe also that as a sovereign nation we are entitled to all the rights and the protection of the World Trade Organization (WTO),” Lovell said in a Sunday phone interview. “We believe the time has come to pursue sanctions having exhausted all other possibilities.”
Save a last minute settlement, Antigua & Barbuda intends to formally announce its intentions to pursue punitive action at a December 17 meeting of the Geneva-based WTO. It will then announce specifics of which U.S. industries it intends to target.
The U.S. Trade Representative’s office did not immediately return a Sunday email seeking comment.
In 2007, the WTO awarded Antigua the right to target U.S. services, copyrights and trademarks in retaliation for its online betting ban. But in a setback for the Caribbean country, the global trade body capped the limit of annual trade sanctions at US$21 million. Antigua & Barbuda had sought the right to impose US$3.4 billion in retaliatory measures, while the U.S. offered about US$500,000.
Still, Lovell believes the countermeasures can be an effective tool to pressure the U.S., even with the WTO’s token amount of US$21 million a year.
