National Office 681 Main Street, Waltham, MA 02451 888-466-8233
www.thealliancefordemocracy.org What is GATS? The General
Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) is one of 15 agreements
adopted as part of the Uruguay Round of trade negotiations
concluded in 1994 which greatly expanded the 1947 General
Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). The Uruguay Round also
created the World Trade Organization (WTO) to enforce the
agreements. Today 139 countries are in the WTO. Every country in
the WTO is part of the GATS agreement. Services cover everything
from McDonalds hamburger flippers to international bankers.
Health care, education, lawyers, accountants, advertising,
media, travel, even municipal services like sewer and water, are
all services which today makes up about 70% of the U.S. economy.
The goal of bringing services into the WTO is to make sure they
are "liberalized." This means promoting privatization of public
services like education. It also means deregulation of services
at the local, state and national