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The WTO and GATT

16 December, 2015 - 15:24

After World War II, there was a collective determination to see world trade restored. Bodies such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank were set up, and many countries signed the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), a commitment to reduce tariffs successively and dismantle trade restrictions.

Under successive rounds of GATT, tariffs fell steadily. By 1960, United States tariffs were only one-fifth their level at the outbreak of the War. In the United Kingdom, the system of wartime quotas on imports had been dismantled by the mid-1950s, after which tariffs were reduced by nearly half in the ensuing 25 years. Europe as a whole moved toward an enlarged European Union in which tariffs between member countries have been abolished. By the late 1980s, Canada’s tariffs had been reduced to about one-quarter of their immediate post-World War II level.

The GATT Secretariat, now called the World Trade Organization (WTO), aims both to dismantle existing protection that reduces efficiency and to extend trade liberalization to more and more countries. Tariff levels throughout the world are now as low as they have ever been, and trade liberalization has been an engine of growth for many economies. The consequence has been a substantial growth in world trade.