Antigua - US Trade Dispute

Antigua and Barbuda
(St. John's, Antigua and Barbuda)

The islands of Antigua and Barbuda are threatening to strip intellectual property protections from American goods as part of a long-running trade dispute over the U.S. embargo on the tiny Caribbean nation's online gambling industry.

U.S. officials say the proposed copyright haven - whose broad outlines were approved Monday at the World Trade Organization in Geneva - amounts to "government-authorized piracy." But Antiguans, who've won a series of legal victories against the U.S. at the international trade body, reject any suggestion that they're pirates.

"We have followed the rules and procedures of the WTO to the letter," Antigua's high commissioner to London, Carl Roberts, said in a statement Monday. "Our little country is doing precisely what it has earned the right to do under international agreements."

The U.S. and Antigua have been tussling for years over the ability of Americans to use online casinos based in the Caribbean nation.

So little David Antigua isn't rolling over for Goliath United States. Heh.