TRADE NEGOTIATIONS AND THE FUTURE OF AMERICAN AGRICULTURE



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

93



More intriguing information

1. ARE VOLATILITY EXPECTATIONS CHARACTERIZED BY REGIME SHIFTS? EVIDENCE FROM IMPLIED VOLATILITY INDICES
2. TOWARD CULTURAL ONCOLOGY: THE EVOLUTIONARY INFORMATION DYNAMICS OF CANCER
3. The Veblen-Gerschenkron Effect of FDI in Mezzogiorno and East Germany
4. Globalization and the benefits of trade
5. AGRICULTURAL TRADE IN THE URUGUAY ROUND: INTO FINAL BATTLE
6. Fiscal Sustainability Across Government Tiers
7. The voluntary welfare associations in Germany: An overview
8. The migration of unskilled youth: Is there any wage gain?
9. Asymmetric transfer of the dynamic motion aftereffect between first- and second-order cues and among different second-order cues
10. The Folklore of Sorting Algorithms
11. Global Excess Liquidity and House Prices - A VAR Analysis for OECD Countries
12. DETERMINANTS OF FOOD AWAY FROM HOME AMONG AFRICAN-AMERICANS
13. AGRICULTURAL PRODUCERS' WILLINGNESS TO PAY FOR REAL-TIME MESOSCALE WEATHER INFORMATION
14. Staying on the Dole
15. The name is absent
16. Eigentumsrechtliche Dezentralisierung und institutioneller Wettbewerb
17. Visual Perception of Humanoid Movement
18. The constitution and evolution of the stars
19. Credit Markets and the Propagation of Monetary Policy Shocks
20. The name is absent