A key priority for the service companies is to place a burden on all countries to show that their regulations are the "least trade restrictive" means to achieve a legitimate purpose.

What does this mean? In case after case, the European Union has suggested that the U.S. federalist system - with overlapping regulatory powers between the states and federal government - is an impediment to trade.

The argument goes like this: American companies with a bigger presence in the United States can more easily manage to deal with separate regulatory agencies in each state. Foreign companies with a smaller presence cannot negotiate this terrain as easily. Thus, goes the EU argument, regulation should be done at the federal level.

Do we really want to sacrifice important state-level consumer and civil rights protections - for example, interest rate caps, limits on corporate discriminatory practices like redlining, restrictions on predatory lending - because they are inconvenient for European companies? Of course, the real point is not that they are inconvenient for Europeans, but for business. The U.S. companies hope to use GATS to eliminate U.S. regulations - just like the European corporations want to get rid of rules in the EU.