THE FUTURE OF THE WTO

Once an obscure international body tucked away in Geneva, Switzerland, the World Trade Organization (WTO) has become almost a household word in the United States today. Its name recognition rose dramatically in fall 1999 when tens of thousands of protestors took over the streets of Seattle at the beginning of the WTO’s November 30–December 3 ministerial meeting. The demonstrators seemed to blame the WTO for undermining all that is good in the world—from democracy and living standards to air quality and sea turtles. The protests were followed later in the week by the collapse of talks among the WTO’s more than 100 members, talks that were supposed to launch a new round of multilateral trade negotiations. This double failure—to persuade hearts and minds outside the negotiating rooms and to achieve consensus within—was an undeniable setback for the WTO and free trade. Events in Seattle invigorated opponents of the WTO, weakened its base of support in Congress, and revived questions about the desirability of trade liberalization itself as a goal of U.S. policy. More so than anytime since its founding, doubts are being raised about the future of the WTO. Those doubts need to be met head-on. Both the WTO and, before it, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade have played an important role in expanding international trade during the post-World War II era, which in turn has helped to spread prosperity to a widening circle of humanity. When representatives of 23 mostly industrialized nations met in 1947 to sign the original General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) treaty, the world economy was still on its knees