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The World Trade Organization ( Wto )

Decent Essays
The World Trade Organization (WTO) is an organization that strives for free international trade. It replaced the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) in 1995. The WTO acts as an arbitrator for countries who are members and participate in the organization. Most of the world is or is willing to become a member of the WTO because of the benefits it can supposedly bring, but it’s really an organization designed around protecting one’s domestic markets, especially the larger countries.

The World Trade Organization was formed in 1995 replacing the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), which was formed in 1948. For over forty years the GATT lead trade agreements and mainly tariffs agreements. The WTO was formed to settle conflicts between trade based under the principles of being non-discrimination, reciprocity, transparency and binding and enforceable commitments. Most trade conflict come around high tariffs on particular goods or goods that country’s think are potential dangerous. The WTO however has no actual power to enforce such ruling but relies on the larger more developed countries to enforce such rulings. Throughout the past 19 years there have been hundreds of cases brought to the attention of the WTO.

The banana wars of the 1990’s involved the United States and the European Union. The United States brought the case to the WTO for the fact that the EU provided preferential tariffs to its former colonies. These colonies that were located around the
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