The final package of the seventh round of multilateral GATT negotiations has been ready for initialling since April 11, 1979. What has been achieved in these negotiations, commonly known as the Tokyo Round, and what has been left undone?

In the fifties and sixties GATT was a motive power for worldwide trade liberalization which caused exports and imports to increase constantly at a higher rate than the production of goods. If this positive trend is to last, the course must be laid now for progressive removal of the trade barriers.

The developing countries are calling for a "New Economic Order" because they feel that the trading system discriminates against them. Whether GATT will emerge from the present negotiations better adapted to the needs of the Third World remains to be seen.

According to the European Commission (EC), the WTO is struggling to credibly remain the go-to place for trade negotiations.1 Indeed, after the Commission stated its concerns, EU-Ambassador to the WTO Marc Vanheukelen commented that if the organisation does not take measures to move forward, the...

The question that remains unanswered is whether Trump’s tariff strategy is a tactical one, intended to wring concessions from China, Germany, Mexico and others, or whether it represents a genuine abandonment of the U.S. commitment to free trade that dates back to the mid-1930s. The answer will...

On 6 July 2017, after four years of negotiation, the EU reached an agreement with Japan over the main elements of a comprehensive free trade agreement. The breakthrough came at a time when progress on multilateral trade negotiations at the global level seemed out of reach and EU bilateral trade...