{"id":184,"date":"2011-01-11T14:29:37","date_gmt":"2011-01-11T19:29:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/citizenstrade.org\/draft\/trade-in-services\/"},"modified":"2011-05-30T14:58:15","modified_gmt":"2011-05-30T18:58:15","slug":"trade-in-services","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.citizenstrade.org\/ctc\/trade-issues\/trade-in-services\/","title":{"rendered":"Trade in Services"},"content":{"rendered":"

Trade in Services Overview<\/a>
\nReports & Fact Sheets<\/a>
\nPublic Citizen’s GATS Directory<\/a>
\nOther Organizational Websites<\/a><\/p>\n

Trade in Services Overview<\/strong><\/a>
\nWhen most people think of trade, they think of goods crossing borders. A new generation of trade rules, however, is expanding the reach of trade agreements into nearly every aspect of the global economy and our lives. New rules on \u201ctrade in services\u201d, could impact areas far removed from the purview of traditional trade agreements- issues critical to public welfare- including healthcare, education, energy, water distribution, sanitation, transportation, and more.<\/p>\n

Trade negotiators are currently writing these rules within an expansion of the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) within the WTO as well as neotiations of the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) and several bilateral agreements. If completed, these agreements would greatly threaten our ability to regulate both public and private services in the public interest, erode public funding for services, lock in any attempts at privatization or contracting out of services, and prevent any new gains in public services. These new rules would apply not only to the provision of services which crosses borders, but also to foreign direct investment in services and to the importation of workers to perform services in foreign countries.<\/p>\n

More specifically these trade rules could:<\/p>\n