{"id":883,"date":"2007-05-15T13:48:00","date_gmt":"2007-05-15T13:48:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/godspolitics\/2007\/05\/elizabeth-palmberg-new-day-or-bad.html"},"modified":"2007-05-15T13:48:00","modified_gmt":"2007-05-15T13:48:00","slug":"elizabeth-palmberg-new-day-or-bad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godspolitics\/2007\/05\/elizabeth-palmberg-new-day-or-bad.html","title":{"rendered":"Elizabeth Palmberg: New Day or Bad Gamble?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Why is it so ironic that, last Thursday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced that congressional leaders had reached a compromise with the Bush administration to make proposed trade agreements with Peru and Panama somewhat less terrible, and would now encourage Congress to approve those agreements?<\/p>\n<p>Less than a week earlier, U.S. trade negotiators admitted that &#8211; oops! &#8211; back in the early 1990s, at the start of the WTO, they\u2019d accidentally committed the entire nation to provide <a title=\"http:\/\/www.ustr.gov\/Document_Library\/Press_Releases\/2007\/May\/Statement_of_Deputy_United_States_Trade_Representative_John_K_Veroneau_Regarding_US_Actions_under_GATS_Article_XXI.html\" href=\"http:\/\/www.ustr.gov\/Document_Library\/Press_Releases\/2007\/May\/Statement_of_Deputy_United_States_Trade_Representative_John_K_Veroneau_Regarding_US_Actions_under_GATS_Article_XXI.html\">completely unfettered access to foreign Internet casinos<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>the United States did not intend to adopt commitments that were inconsistent with its own laws \u2026 gambling or betting services are generally prohibited or highly restricted in the United States for reasons of public morality, law enforcement and protection of minors and other vulnerable groups. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>We only noticed the blooper when casino host country Antigua filed a successful trade lawsuit (European countries were expected to follow suit). And what the government isn\u2019t emphasizing now is that, in order to withdraw our gambling market from WTO jurisdiction and protect countless state and local gambling laws, <a title=\"http:\/\/www.citizen.org\/pressroom\/release.cfm?ID=\" href=\"http:\/\/www.citizen.org\/pressroom\/release.cfm?ID=2429\">we\u2019re going to have to pay through the nose<\/a> to Antigua and any other country that feels cut out of the action.<\/p>\n<p>So, when Pelosi tells Congress, and the rest of us, that <a title=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/wp-dyn\/content\/article\/2007\/05\/10\/AR2007051002170.html?hpid=\" href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/wp-dyn\/content\/article\/2007\/05\/10\/AR2007051002170.html?hpid=moreheadlines\">it\u2019s \u201ca new day<\/a>,\u201d and that all the problems with the proposed U.S-Peru and U.S.-Panama trade agreements &#8211; extraordinarily complex, binding treaties &#8211; are fixed now, you&#8217;ve got to ask yourself one question: Do you feel lucky?<\/p>\n<p>Well, do you?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Elizabeth Palmberg<\/strong> is an Assistant Editor for <em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.sojo.net\">Sojourners<\/a> <\/em>magazine. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sojo.net\/index.cfm?action=magazine.contents&amp;issue=Soj0705\">+ Learn more in <em>Sojourners&#8217;<\/em> May special issue on trade justice<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Why is it so ironic that, last Thursday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced that congressional leaders had reached a compromise with the Bush administration to make proposed trade agreements with Peru and Panama somewhat less terrible, and would now encourage Congress to approve those agreements? Less than a week earlier, U.S. trade negotiators admitted that&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":379,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-883","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-trade"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Elizabeth Palmberg: New Day or Bad Gamble? - God&#039;s Politics<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godspolitics\/2007\/05\/elizabeth-palmberg-new-day-or-bad.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Elizabeth Palmberg: New Day or Bad Gamble? - God&#039;s Politics\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Why is it so ironic that, last Thursday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced that congressional leaders had reached a compromise with the Bush administration to make proposed trade agreements with Peru and Panama somewhat less terrible, and would now encourage Congress to approve those agreements? Less than a week earlier, U.S. trade negotiators admitted that&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godspolitics\/2007\/05\/elizabeth-palmberg-new-day-or-bad.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"God&#039;s Politics\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2007-05-15T13:48:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"gp_intern\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Elizabeth Palmberg: New Day or Bad Gamble? - God&#039;s Politics","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godspolitics\/2007\/05\/elizabeth-palmberg-new-day-or-bad.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Elizabeth Palmberg: New Day or Bad Gamble? - God&#039;s Politics","og_description":"Why is it so ironic that, last Thursday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced that congressional leaders had reached a compromise with the Bush administration to make proposed trade agreements with Peru and Panama somewhat less terrible, and would now encourage Congress to approve those agreements? Less than a week earlier, U.S. trade negotiators admitted that&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godspolitics\/2007\/05\/elizabeth-palmberg-new-day-or-bad.html","og_site_name":"God&#039;s Politics","article_published_time":"2007-05-15T13:48:00+00:00","author":"gp_intern","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godspolitics\/2007\/05\/elizabeth-palmberg-new-day-or-bad.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godspolitics\/2007\/05\/elizabeth-palmberg-new-day-or-bad.html","name":"Elizabeth Palmberg: New Day or Bad Gamble? - God&#039;s Politics","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godspolitics\/#website"},"datePublished":"2007-05-15T13:48:00+00:00","dateModified":"2007-05-15T13:48:00+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godspolitics\/#\/schema\/person\/cdd0d36f3f2e1667662d6db39e7e2fba"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godspolitics\/2007\/05\/elizabeth-palmberg-new-day-or-bad.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godspolitics\/2007\/05\/elizabeth-palmberg-new-day-or-bad.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godspolitics\/2007\/05\/elizabeth-palmberg-new-day-or-bad.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godspolitics"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Elizabeth Palmberg: New Day or Bad Gamble?"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godspolitics\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godspolitics\/","name":"God&#039;s Politics","description":"","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godspolitics\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godspolitics\/#\/schema\/person\/cdd0d36f3f2e1667662d6db39e7e2fba","name":"gp_intern","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godspolitics\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"gp_intern"},"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godspolitics\/author\/gp_intern"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godspolitics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/883","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godspolitics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godspolitics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godspolitics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/379"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godspolitics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=883"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godspolitics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/883\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godspolitics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=883"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godspolitics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=883"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godspolitics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=883"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}