TISA/WTO: More Deregulation Coming in the Back Door of an International Trade Agreement.

[pam4water]

This trade agreement is just plain crazy. It could affect every thing form banks and hospitals to power, water and postal services.

DESVARIEUX:Last week in Geneva, trade representatives from countries with the top global economies met to negotiate the Trade in Services Agreement, also known as TISA...

JAMES:... GATS-era rules on deregulation of the financial sector, which are part of the General Agreement on Trade in Services now in the WTO, as well as a special financial services agreement, those are some of the deregulatory rules that actually led to the financialization of the economy that had a big influence on spreading the global economic crisis when it started in the U.S. because of our housing crisis, spreading it around the world. So those are the types of regulations that--you know, we want to be able to regulate the financial sector. All governments are saying, yes, we should be able to regulate more of the financial sector...

Ill give you a second example, which is incredible, that the government of Bolivia, for example, has within its Constitution now, the people of Bolivia have a right to health care, and that is considered a state obligation. Well, Bolivia, in a previous neoliberal government, actually subjected hospital services to the WTO, it submitted them to the WTO, which means that it has to allow presence of foreign hospital services operators, hotel--excuse me--hospital operators in Bolivia. And they, you know, have a new government, they have a new constitution, and they said, this is a human right now, right to health care; we want to take this out of the WTO. But WTO members have the right to block a country from rescinding a sector from the agreement once it has subjected it to it. So the United States thus far, even though we have no commercial presence in this sector in Bolivia, has thus far not allowed Bolivia to claw back something so important as hospital services, to say, this is a national--you know, it's a constitutional mandate, it's absolutely a human right, and we need it in control of the state. They say no, you have to still allow us to have a foreign presence, because that's what you agreed to many years ago in the WTO. And this is what we don't want to have happen even further, as the proposed TISA would be including even more sectors and including even further deregulation for the participating countries...