Why is America a member of WTO?
The World Trade Organization is the product of the latest round of the General
Agreement on Trade and Tariff’s. The U.S. back in the 1940’s was one of the initiators of
this agreement and has been a major player in each of the revisions since the initial
agreement.
The reason that the U.S. pushed GATT in the first place was the belief that the old
trade system was a significant cause of the Great Depression. Further, as the largest
industrial country in the world, the leaders of the U.S. believed that a global system of
high tariffs was more likely to hurt the U.S. then help the U.S.