Re: Antigua can look after its own interests, which may not be sports\'
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I am damn glad you do not work for the Bush administration Milton. And I hope the US Trade Rep. does not read 2+2 forums.
Skallagrim
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Antigua can't handle much more tourism. Its hard to legislate where people vacation. They are not nor will be a top tier OFC. MFN and some regional/bilateral deals would kill any kind of financial package in that area as well. Any deal can't give them different tariff treatment/market access than that they give other nations. MFN is a beautiful concept for us. Give preference to banks and insurance there, be assured the EU will bring a WTO case. Other than straight cash there is nothing the USTR can offer. Antigua is so small that the size of the gaming busiess it had/had can't be replicated in another industry for them.
They can however reach a deal over remote gaming. It may not be legal, but another country bringing a case would take years and years. So they could throw poker under the bus because legislators make funny deals when they don't understnad what they are negotiating over. The good news is
it wont effect FT or Stars if Antigua did. Small chance though that Antigua is anything but a huge success or failure.
For Visa/MC the issue is cost. Antigua doesn't have the labor or the low wages to make it profitable at all.
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