Three days before the United States' deadline for compliance with WTO policy regarding the treatment of foreign I-gaming services, an inside source has revealed that rather than presenting a compliance plan, the U.S. Trade Representative will ask the U.S. Executive Liaison for Exportation Service Standards to intervene by presenting to the WTO appellate body evidence of numerous cases in which the government of Antigua and Barbuda is itself in violation of WTO trade agreements.
In a memo leaked to the press on Friday, the source outlined 20 citations of cases in which Antiguan merchants have blatantly boycotted U.S. products. An investigation carried out in February revealed that Antigua has inexplicably declined to import numerous products, despite the products' immense popularity in other parts of the world--even in nearby Caribbean islands.
The findings are detailed in a 678-page report that is unnamed but internally recognized as "The Banana Bomb Chronicle." Key findings include:
Four of the United States' top 10 selling sports utility vehicles were not available for purchase anywhere on the islands.
Thirty-seven U.S.-made music albums featured on the Billboard Top 100 for the month of February were nowhere to be found in Antiguan record stores.
Attempts by 11 U.S. food and beverage distributors to export products to Antigua and Barbuda were met with repeated denials, despite the presence of competing products at local island markets.
On July 14, 2004, the Antigua Customs Department denied the importation of a shipment 6,000 crates of U.S.-produced toothpaste, only to approve shipments of comparable sizes from Denmark and Singapore on July 24 and August 21 (respectively) of the same year.
It is speculated that the Export Chief will present the report to the appellate body at the compliance evaluation hearing scheduled for Monday and will ask the Antiguan government to drop its complaint against the United States in exchange for the United States abstaining from filing a similar complaint based on the Banana Bomb report.
It should also be noted that neither the U.S. Executive Liaison for Exportation Service Standards (USELESS) nor the Banana Bomb report exist and that this entire news article was fabricated from top to bottom as a pathetic April Fools gag.
Sorry.