Who benefits from the WTO?
Almost from its start, the World Trade Organization (WTO) has been controversial. The WTO has its origins in the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), a treaty signed by the United States and 22 other countries in 1948 that was intended to promote trade by eliminating tariffs. By 1994, 125 countries had joined the GATT, and they decided to upgrade their arrangements by creating the WTO, an international organization that would have a greater authority and a more efficient mechanism to adjudicate trade disputes among its members. Divisions soon arose, however, between developed and developing nations, rooted in questions about which group benefited more from liberalizing trade. Today, supporters of the WTO argue that its success is self-evident: it has increased global trade and continues to fulfill its mission. Detractors say that the WTO’s approach helps rich countries at the expense of poor countries. (But this criticism hasn’t stopped many developing nations from trying to
