The “national treatment” clause in trade agreements was designed to ensure that internal fiscal or administrative regulations would not introduce discrimination of a nontariff nature. It forbids discriminatory use of the following: taxes or other internal levies; laws, regulations, and decrees affecting the sale, offer for sale, purchase, transport, distribution, or use of products on the domestic market; valuation of products for purposes of assessment of duty; legislation on prices of imported goods; warehousing and transit regulations; and the organization and operation of state trading corporations.

The conclusion of World War II spurred efforts to correct the problems stemming from protectionism, which had increased since 1871, and trade restrictions, which had been imposed between World Wars I and II. The resulting multilateral trade agreements and other forms of international economic cooperation led to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and laid the foundation for the World Trade Organization (WTO).

The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade was signed in Geneva on October 30, 1947, by 23 countries, which accounted for four-fifths of world trade. On the same day, 10 of those countries, including the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Belgium, and the Netherlands, signed a protocol bringing the agreement into force on January 1, 1948.

GATT took the form of a multilateral trade agreement that set forth the principles under which the signatories, on a basis of “reciprocity and mutual advantage,” would negotiate “a substantial reduction in customs tariffs and other impediments to trade, and the elimination of discriminatory practices in international trade.” As more countries joined, GATT became a charter governing almost all world trade except for that of the communist countries.

The agreement also contained a variety of clauses providing exceptions to the rules in special situations. These included balance-of-payments disequilibrium; serious and unexpected damage to domestic production; the requirements of economic development or, subject to very broad reservations, of agricultural policy; the need to protect domestic raw material production; and the interests of national security. In addition, GATT rules permitted various departures from the MFN principle. For example, within the former EEC, France could permit duty-free entry of goods from its fellow members—such as Germany and Italy—without extending such duty-free treatment to the products of non-EEC nations.

Prior to the creation of GATT’s successor organization, the WTO, multilateral trade conferences, called rounds, were held periodically by GATT countries to resolve trade problems. Most of these took place in Geneva, former site of GATT headquarters and current site of the WTO. At the time, the formula for multilateral tariff bargaining under GATT represented a major innovation in intergovernmental cooperation. In appraising the concessions that they could afford to make, this approach to GATT negotiations permitted governments to account for the indirect advantages that they could expect from the full set of bilateral negotiations. GATT made positive contributions to the growth of world trade, with three GATT sessions seen as having particular historic importance—the so-called Kennedy, Tokyo, and Uruguay rounds.

As the economic integration of western Europe progressed, some Americans became concerned at the prospect of being excluded from these advances in trade policy. Pres. John F. Kennedy pursued the goal of an Atlantic partnership and secured special negotiating powers under the Trade Expansion Act of 1962. The act authorized tariff reductions of up to 50 percent, subject to reciprocal concessions from the European partners. This marked a fundamental shift away from the traditional protectionist posture of the United States and led to the Kennedy Round negotiations in GATT, held in Geneva from May 1964 to June 1967.

The Kennedy Round continued the process of tariff reduction begun two decades earlier by the industrial countries. While developing countries drew little immediate advantage from the Kennedy Round negotiations, they were able to obtain the addition of a new part titled “Trade and Development” to the GATT charter, calling for stabilization, as far as possible, of raw material prices; reduction or abolition of customs duties or other restrictions that differentiate unreasonably between products in their primary state and the same products in finished form; and renunciation by the advanced countries of the principle of reciprocity in their relations with less-developed countries.

The next ministerial meeting of GATT opened in Tokyo on September 12, 1973, and was attended by representatives of ministerial or comparable level from 102 countries. On September 14 the meeting closed with the adoption of what came to be called the Tokyo Declaration.

The declaration differed markedly from previous GATT documents in the inordinately large portion of its language devoted to strengthening the negotiating position of the less-developed countries. Specifically, the trade negotiations would aim at improving the conditions of access for products of interest to such countries while ensuring stable, equitable, and remunerative prices for primary products. Tropical products would be given special and priority treatment. The principle of nonreciprocity in negotiations between developed and less-developed countries, an established principle in GATT, was reaffirmed: the importance of maintaining and improving the Generalized System of Preferences (a provision for lower tariff rates) granted by developed countries to less-developed countries, as well as the need for special measures and the importance of providing special, differential, and more favourable treatment for less-developed countries, were recognized. Special attention was to be given to the trade interests of the least-developed countries.

The Tokyo Declaration was followed by several years of multinational trade negotiations that came to be called the Tokyo Round, concluding in 1979 with the adoption of a series of tariff reductions to be implemented generally over an eight-year period beginning in 1980. Further progress was also made in dealing with nontariff issues. Most notably, a Code on Subsidies and Countervailing Duties was negotiated. This code had two main features: it listed a number of unacceptable subsidy practices, and it introduced a requirement that formal procedures be followed before the imposition of countervailing duties on imports subsidized by foreign nations. Specifically, before the imposition of a countervailing duty, an investigation had to establish that competing domestic firms were being injured. The code was not signed by all of the members, however, and the signing nations agreed only to follow the prescribed rules before applying countervailing duties to the exports of other signatories. Thus, while the code represented progress in dealing with a new topic, it also represented a departure from the MFN principle: signatories were not required to extend the benefits of the code to GATT members who did not sign the code.

A new set of negotiations was initiated at a conference in Uruguay in 1986. Because traditional tariffs were becoming much less important, most of the attention was focused on other impediments to international transactions, such as those affecting trade in services or intellectual property. The Uruguay Round led to the replacement of GATT by the WTO in 1995. Whereas GATT focused almost exclusively on goods (though much of agriculture and textiles were excluded), the WTO encompassed all goods, services, and intellectual property, as well as some investment policies. The combined share of international trade of WTO members came to exceed 90 percent of the global total.

As the successor to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), the World Trade Organization (WTO) was established to supervise and liberalize world trade.

During negotiations ending in 1994, the original GATT and all changes to it introduced prior to the Uruguay Round of trade negotiations were renamed GATT 1947. This earlier set of agreements was distinguished from GATT 1994, which comprises the modifications and clarifications negotiated during the Uruguay Round (referred to as “Understandings”) plus a dozen other multilateral agreements on merchandise trade. GATT 1994 became an integral part of the agreement that established the WTO. Other core components include the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS), which attempted to supervise and liberalize trade; the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), which sought to improve protection of intellectual property across borders; the Understanding on Rules and Procedures Governing the Settlement of Disputes, which established rules for resolving conflicts between members; the Trade Policy Review Mechanism, which documented national trade policies and assessed their conformity with WTO rules; and four plurilateral agreements, signed by only a subset of the WTO membership, on civil aircraft, government procurement, dairy products, and bovine meat (though the last two were terminated at the end of 1997 with the creation of related WTO committees). These agreements were signed in Marrakech, Morocco, in April 1994, and, following their ratification, the contracting parties to the GATT treaty became charter members of the WTO. By the 2020s the WTO had more than 160 members.

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Demonstrators in Hong Kong protesting against the World Trade Organization during a summit in 2005.

© Mike K./Dreamstime.com

Critics of the WTO, including many opponents of economic globalization, have charged that the organization undermines national sovereignty by promoting the interests of large multinational corporations and that the trade liberalization it encourages leads to environmental damage and declining living standards for low-skilled workers in developing countries (see neoliberal globalization). Some WTO members, especially developing countries, resisted attempts to adopt rules that would allow for sanctions against countries that failed to meet strict environmental and labour standards, arguing that the sanctions would amount to veiled protectionism. Despite these criticisms, however, WTO admission remained attractive for nonmembers, as evidenced by the increase in membership after 1995. Most significantly, China entered the WTO in 2001, after years of accession negotiations, and many other countries joined through accession in succeeding years.

On April 16, 1948, 16 European countries responded to a U.S. offer of economic aid under the European Recovery Program by setting up the Organisation for European Economic Co-operation (OEEC). Although the immediate aim was to coordinate the distribution of U.S. credits, the OEEC convention was also designed to foster free trade between the members and allow their participation in customs unions or similar institutions. The members by 1955 consisted of Britain, France, West Germany, Italy, Spain, the Benelux countries, Austria, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Switzerland, Portugal, Greece, Ireland, Turkey, and Iceland.

The OEEC did much to facilitate the recovery of intra-European trade and particularly to abolish most of the quantitative restrictions on imports within the area. On September 30, 1961, it was converted into a new institution, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), and membership was extended to the United States and Canada. Japan joined in 1964, followed by Finland (1969), Australia (1971), New Zealand (1973), and others to total 37 OECD member nations by the 2020s.

The three fundamental aims of the OECD are to promote the economic growth of member countries, to contribute to the economic growth of less-developed countries, and to foster the growth of world trade on a multilateral, nondiscriminatory basis. Having little power to enforce its decisions, the OECD at the start of the 21st century served mostly as a consultative body, influencing trade through its studies of such matters as the impact of social policies, globalization, and protectionism.