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The Rule That Made Global Trade in Services Possible
Description
Episode 91 of Global Trade with Fexingo dives into the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS), the World Trade Organization framework that underpins trillions of dollars in cross-border services trade. Lucas and Luna break down how GATS categorizes services into four modes of supply, why it took seven years of negotiation to finalize in 1995, and its real-world impact on everything from international banking to cloud computing. They explore the principle of 'most-favored-nation' treatment for services, the controversial 'positive list' approach that lets countries pick which sectors to open, and the current stalemate over digital services trade in the Doha Round. Specific examples include India's push to open cross-border data flows for its IT sector and the EU's resistance on cultural exemptions. The hosts also touch on emerging challenges: how cloud services and AI models fit into a framework designed before the internet era, and why negotiations on e-commerce have stalled since 1998. A concrete, accessible look at the backbone of modern services trade.