Agricultural Trade, the GATT and LDCs

Abstract

The Uruguay Round is the most ambitious multilateral trade negotiation (MTN) ever attempted. Pessimists perceive this round as the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade’s (GATT’s) last chance to restore the ‘rule of law’, by effectively addressing the backlog of problems that plague the multilateral trade system.2 Optimists interpret the Uruguay Round as a unique opportunity to set the rules that will govern international trade well into the 21st century. Under both perspectives, however, trade in agricultural goods is considered a high priority on the agenda of negotiations. After all, growing agricultural protectionism at the world level not only qualifies as one of the major failures in the history of GATT, but it can also jeopardise the future of the multilateral system as the impasse during the Montreal Ministerial Meeting in December 1988 illustrated.KeywordsTrade LiberalisationCommon Agricultural PolicyEuropean Economic CommunityUruguay RoundExport SubsidyThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.