A little background on the GATT and what has led to the current
round of negotiations may be useful.
The GATT
The GATT is a multilateral agreement that lays down rules govern-
ing the trade relations between member countries. It also functions
as the principal international body concerned with reducing or elimi-
nating trade barriers. It does so through the sponsorship of interna-
tional rounds of trade negotiations.
Since its inception, seven major rounds of negotiations have taken
place under GATT auspices: in Geneva in 1948; in Annecy, France, in
1949; in Torquay, England, in 1951; in Geneva in 1956; in Geneva
(the “Dillon Round”) in 1960-61; in Geneva (the “Kennedy Round”)
in 1964-67; and, finally, the “Tokyo Round” which began in Tokyo,
Japan, in 1973 and ended in 1979.
As a result of these past rounds of trade negotiations, tariff rates on
thousands of items entering world commerce have been reduced or
bound against increase.
The Kennedy Round alone reduced the average level of world in-
dustrial tariffs by one-third. These reductions affected a high propor-
tion of the total trade of GATT countries and, indirectly, the trade of
many nonmembers. These reductions also contributed greatly to the
immense growth in world trade since 1948.
In the 1970s, the Tokyo Round negotiations attempted to remove
both tariff and nontariff obstacles to trade on a whole range of indus-
trial and agricultural products, including tropical products and raw
material, whether in primary form or at any stage of processing.
The United States has consistently supported the concept of im-
proved trading rules for guiding trade transactions even though
trade is relatively less important to us than to our trading partners.
While U.S. gross national product (GNP) is 23 percent of the world
economy, we only account for 10 percent of world trade. U.S. exports
are about 7 percent of U.S. GNP versus 32 percent for Germany, 29
percent for the United Kingdom and Canada, 25 percent for Italy, 24
percent for France, 16 percent for Japan and Australia and 13 per-
cent for Brazil.
Nevertheless, the United States continues to support further im-
provements in the GATT as the most logical means of, in John Stuart
Mill’s words again, gaining “a more efficient employment of the pro-
ductive forces of the world.”
The Uruguay Round
We are now standing at the beginning of another round of multila-
teral negotiations. This, the Uruguay Round, launched on September
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