Latin American countries and the establishment of the multilateral trading system: the Havana Conference (1947-1948)

Abstract

This article proposes to study the participation of Latin American delegations during the Havana Conference, which negotiated and approved the Charter of International Trade Organization (ITO), including the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), in 1947-1948. It shows that the prevalent understanding of Latin American countries was that the Havana negotiations would be the outcome of their existing political and material power asymmetries in relation to the industrialized countries. They believed that their fragile economies should face the strong economies of the industrialized countries by economic planning and import substitution, already in place in several Latin American countries since the 1930s and the 1940s. The article also shows that the construction of the post-World War II international trade regime was in fact characterized by strong material and political inequalities, which undermined Latin American countries abilities to negotiate.