The World Trade Organization (WTO) is an intergovernmental organization headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland that regulates and facilitates international trade. Governments use the organization to establish, revise, and enforce the rules that govern international trade in cooperation with the United Nations System. The WTO is the world's largest international economic organization, with 164 member states representing over 98% of global trade and global GDP.
The Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) was a proposed agreement to eliminate or reduce the trade barriers among all countries in the Americas, excluding Cuba. Negotiations to establish the FTAA ended in failure, however, with all parties unable to reach an agreement by the 2005 deadline they had set for themselves.
The Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) is an agency of the United States federal government responsible for developing and promoting American trade policy. Part of the Executive Office of the President, it is headed by the U.S. Trade Representative, a Cabinet-level position that serves as the U.S. President's primary advisor, negotiator, and spokesperson on trade matters. USTR has more than two hundred employees, with offices in Geneva, Switzerland, and Brussels, Belgium.
The Dominican Republic–Central America–United States Free Trade Agreement is a free trade agreement. Originally, the agreement encompassed the United States and the Central American countries of Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua, and was called CAFTA. In 2004, the Dominican Republic joined the negotiations, and the agreement was renamed CAFTA-DR.
The World Trade Organization's Ministerial Conference of 1996 was held in Singapore on December 9 - December 13, 1996. The inaugural meeting for the organisation since its formation. The event was hosted by the government of Singapore at the Singapore International Convention and Exhibition Centre in Suntec City.
The Kennedy Round was the sixth session of General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) multilateral trade negotiations held between 1964 and 1967 in Geneva, Switzerland. Congressional passage of the U.S. Trade Expansion Act in 1962 authorized the White House to conduct mutual tariff negotiations, ultimately leading to the Kennedy Round. Participation greatly increased over previous rounds. Sixty-six nations, representing 80% of world trade, attended the official opening on May 4, 1964, at the Palais des Nations. Despite several disagreements over details, the director general announced the round's success on May 15, 1967, and the final agreement was signed on June 30, 1967—the last day permitted under the Trade Expansion Act. The round was named after U.S. President John F. Kennedy, who was assassinated six months before the opening negotiations.
The Doha Development Round or Doha Development Agenda (DDA) is the trade-negotiation round of the World Trade Organization (WTO) which commenced in November 2001 under then director-general Mike Moore. Its objective was to lower trade barriers around the world, and thus facilitate increased global trade.
The American Chamber of Commerce in Taiwan is an international business association based in Taipei City, Taiwan, with about 1,100 members representing over 580 companies across various sectors.
The Fourth Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organization, also known as the WTO Fourth Ministerial Conference, was held at the Sheraton Doha Hotel and Resort, Doha, Qatar from November 9–13, 2001. At this conference, ministers from all WTO members launched the Doha Development Agenda.
The WTO Ministerial Conference of 1999 was the third Ministerial-level meeting of the World Trade Organization, convened at the Washington State Convention and Trade Center in Seattle, Washington, USA, over the course of four days, from Tuesday, 30 November 1999 to Friday, 3 December 1999. Anti-globalization activists organized large-scale protests of the meeting, sometimes known as the Battle of Seattle. Direct action tactics forced the WTO Ministerial Conference to begin late on 30 November and contributed to the meeting ending without agreement on 3 December.
Global Trade Watch (GTW) is a consumer advocacy organization that focuses on trade policy. Founded in 1995 by attorney Lori Wallach, GTW is a division of U.S.-based think tank Public Citizen. GTW advocates for a greater public role in international, federal, state and local policy-making, and for a different set of policies and institutions than those governing the current model of globalization. In 2022, Melinda St. Louis succeeded Wallach as director of GTW.
Harold Whittlesey "Terry" McGraw III is an American businessman and is the chairman emeritus of McGraw Hill Financial.
The fast track authority for brokering trade agreements is the authority of the President of the United States to negotiate international agreements in an expedited manner and with limited congressional oversight. Renamed the trade promotion authority (TPA) in 2002, the TPA is an impermanent power granted by Congress to the President. It remained in effect from 1975 to 1994, pursuant to the Trade Act of 1974 and from 2002 to 2007 pursuant to the Trade Act of 2002. Although it technically expired in July 2007, it remained in effect for agreements that were already under negotiation until their passage in 2011. In June 2015, a third renewal passed Congress and was signed into law by President Barack Obama.
Rufus Hawkins Yerxa is an American lawyer and former U.S. government and international official. He is currently a Senior Advisor with the global consulting firm McClarty Associates. He served as Deputy United States Trade Representative during the George H.W. Bush and Clinton Administrations, and served for 11 years as Deputy Director General of the World Trade Organization (WTO). From 2016 to 2021 he was President of the National Foreign Trade Council.
Honduras and the United States have had formal relations since 1830. There is close cooperation between the two countries, particularly in the areas of the War on Drugs while the National Port Authority in Puerto Cortés is part of the U.S. Bureau of Customs and Border Protection's Container Security Initiative.
Iran officially submitted an application to join the World Trade Organization (WTO) on 19 July 1996. From July 1996 to May 2001, Iran’s application had not been considered, mainly as a result of US objections and the US veto power in the WTO Council. From May 2001 Iran’s application for WTO membership has been brought up 22 times. At the 22nd time, on 26 May 2005, Iran’s application for WTO membership was approved unanimously by the organization’s members. Thus the process of Iran’s membership in the WTO started. Once Iran’s application was accepted and examined by WTO General Council, Iran became WTO observer member and started the process of full membership in the organization. In November 2009 Iran submitted the Foreign Trade Regime Memorandum as the process of accession entered a new phase.
The U.S.–China Relations Act of 2000 is an Act of the United States Congress that granted China permanent normal trade relations (NTR) status when China becomes a full member of the World Trade Organization (WTO), ending annual review and approval of NTR. It was signed into law on October 10, 2000, by United States President Bill Clinton. The Act also establishes a Congressional-Executive Commission to ensure that China complies with internationally recognized human rights laws, meets labor standards and allows religious freedom, and establishes a task force to prohibit the importation of Chinese products that were made in forced labor camps or prisons. The Act also includes so-called "anti-dumping" measures designed to prevent an influx of inexpensive Chinese goods into the United States that might hurt American industries making the same goods. It allows new duties and restrictions on Chinese imports that "threaten to cause market disruption to the U.S. producers of a like or directly competitive product."
The U.S. – E.E.C. Businessmen’s Conference was an outreach initiative of the Chamber of Commerce of the United States which began in November 1970 with a series of exchanges and high-level meetings aimed at reassuring Europe’s business leaders and strengthening trans-Atlantic commercial ties during a period of trade and monetary instability. The turbulence became particularly acute surrounding the August 1971 Nixon Administration decision to decouple the Dollar from gold – a de facto devaluation along with the rise of protectionist sentiment embodied in the Burke-Hartke legislation advanced by American trade unions. After eight months of intense planning and numerous trips to Europe led by Chamber president Archie K. Davis and the Chamber’s international group executive Nicholas E. Hollis, the resultant framework and momentum produced a three-day conference at Versailles outside Paris. The conference convened nearly 100 top industrialists and bankers at the historic Trianon Palace Hotel—and led to the creation of an ongoing organization called the U.S.-E.C. Business Council, as well as laying the foundation for the Trilateral Commission.
Robert Emmet Lighthizer is an American attorney and government official who was the United States Trade Representative in the Donald Trump administration from 2017 to 2021.
The World Trade Organization (WTO) is an intergovernmental organization which regulates international trade. The WTO officially commenced on 1 January 1995 under the Marrakesh Agreement, signed by 123 nations on 15 April 1994, replacing the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), which commenced in 1948. The WTO deals with regulation of trade between participating countries by providing a framework for negotiating trade agreements and a dispute resolution process aimed at enforcing participants' adherence to WTO agreements, which is signed by representatives of member governments and ratified by their parliaments. Most of the issues that the WTO focuses on derive from previous trade negotiations, especially from the Uruguay Round (1986–1994).
