{"id":107,"date":"2005-12-15T20:47:41","date_gmt":"2005-12-16T00:47:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/globalfund\/2005\/12\/15\/us-immigration-policy-on-the-table"},"modified":"2005-12-15T20:47:41","modified_gmt":"2005-12-16T00:47:41","slug":"us-immigration-policy-on-the-table-at-the-wto","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/globalfund\/2005\/12\/15\/us-immigration-policy-on-the-table-at-the-wto\/","title":{"rendered":"U.S. Immigration Policy on the Table at the WTO"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a name='a151'><\/a><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">By <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;\">Sarah Anderson, Institute for Policy Studies, <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;\">November 30, 2005<\/span><br \/>\n&#8230;<br \/>\nHow did immigration wind up on the table at the WTO? Under the global<br \/>\ntrade body&#8217;s General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS), governments<br \/>\ncan regulate the supply of services performed by foreigners. The<br \/>\ntechnical term for this type of service trade is Mode 4. Thus far, the<br \/>\ntypes of visas being discussed are those for executives and highly<br \/>\nskilled professionals, such as Indian software engineers who have come<br \/>\nto work in the Silicon Valley and other high-tech hubs in the United<br \/>\nStates . Some developing countries are pushing for the Mode 4 talks to<br \/>\ncover less-skilled workers as well.<\/p>\n<p>The wrangling over visas is just one more example of the WTO&#8217;s mission<br \/>\ncreep. Global trade rules are no longer aimed merely at eliminating<br \/>\ntariffs on goods that cross borders. The ultimate goal of GATS, for<br \/>\nexample, is to lift barriers to all manner of services by curbing<br \/>\nnational and local government controls on the entry of global banks,<br \/>\ninsurance companies, and other service providers into each country&#8217;s<br \/>\nmarkets. Other WTO rules limit government efforts to offer affordable<br \/>\ngeneric medicines or to protect native plants and traditional<br \/>\nhandicrafts from being patented for profit by global businesses. And<br \/>\nany domestic law, including public interest regulations, can be<br \/>\nchallenged under WTO rules as &#x201C;an unfair barrier to trade.&#x201D; <br \/>\n&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Sarah Anderson, Institute for Policy Studies, November 30, 2005 &#8230; How did immigration wind up on the table at the WTO? Under the global trade body&#8217;s General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS), governments can regulate the supply of services performed by foreigners. The technical term for this type of service trade is Mode [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":359,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[780],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-107","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-globalization"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/globalfund\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/globalfund\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/globalfund\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/globalfund\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/359"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/globalfund\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=107"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/globalfund\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/globalfund\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=107"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/globalfund\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=107"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/globalfund\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=107"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}