As a multilateral trade agreement, GATT obliges its signatories to extend most-favoured-nation status to other trading partners participating in the WTO. Most-favoured-nation status means that each WTO Member enjoys the same tariff treatment for its goods in foreign markets as the “most favoured country” competing in the same market, thus excluding preferences or discrimination against a member State. Mercantilist trade policy has discouraged trade agreements between nations. This is because governments have supported local industry by using tariffs and quotas on imports, as well as banning the export of tools, capital goods, skilled labor, or anything else that could help foreign countries compete with domestic production of industrial goods. But in this election year, political support is waning, especially among rank-and-file Republicans and even among mainstream Republicans in the Senate, who are holding back on a combination of economic and political motives. The two main candidates for the GOP presidency are vocal critics of the trade deals, as is the challenger of Democratic hopeful Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders. Traditional Republican supporters of free trade, such as House Speaker Paul Ryan, are increasingly becoming lone defenders of free trade. Criticisms of bilateral and regional approaches to trade liberalization have many additional arguments. They suggest that these approaches could undermine and replace the WTO`s multilateral approach, rather than supporting and complementing it, which is preferable for global action on a non-discriminatory basis. Therefore, the long-term outcome of bilateralism could be a deterioration of the global trading system into competing and discriminatory regional trading blocs, resulting in additional complexity that would complicate the flow of goods between countries.

Moreover, the reform of issues such as agricultural export subsidies cannot be effectively addressed at the bilateral or regional level. The president`s bargaining power was initially limited to bilateral agreements with individual foreign countries. But after World War II, in an effort to integrate and rebuild the postwar economy, the United States spearheaded the creation of the General Multilateral Agreement on Tariffs and Trade known as GATT. Under its auspices, the world`s leading trading nations have concluded a series of rounds of negotiations aimed at further reducing barriers to trade. The most important of these were the Kennedy Round (1963-67), the Tokyo Round (1973-79) and the Uruguay Round (1986-94). From the 1930s to the 1980s, the United States` fundamental political fault line in trade was economic in nature. Workers and businesses threatened by trade competition have supported higher barriers to trade; those who saw profits wanted to reduce them. Since the former, faced with losses, were more politically active, US negotiators had to look for “trade winners” (exporters, international investors) and engage them politically. They also used broader arguments, citing economists` estimates of the overall social benefits of trade and pointing to international political gains. And they have repeatedly warned against the “slippery slope” of protectionism. Overall, free trade advocates prevailed, although there were periods (such as the 1980s) when a sharp increase in imports created a serious protectionist threat.

The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) is a forum for 21 Pacific Rim countries (formerly member economies) that aims to promote free trade and economic cooperation throughout the Asia-Pacific region. Founded in 1989 in response to the growing interdependence of Asia-Pacific economies and the emergence of regional economic blocs (such as the European Union) in other parts of the world, APEC strives to raise living standards and education levels through sustainable economic growth and to promote a sense of community and appreciation of common interests among Asia-Pacific countries. The World Bank is an international financial institution that lends to developing countries for various programs. NAFTA is an agreement signed by Canada, Mexico and the United States that creates a trilateral trading bloc in North America. The world`s major countries founded GATT in response to the waves of protectionism that crippled world trade during the Great Depression of the 1930s and contributed to its expansion. In successive rounds of negotiations, GATT has significantly reduced tariff barriers for industrial products in industrialized countries. Since the beginning of GATT in 1947, average tariffs in industrialized countries have risen from about 40% to about 5% today. These tariff reductions helped to promote the enormous expansion of world trade after the Second World War and the associated increase in real per capita income between developed and developing countries. The annual gain from the removal of tariff and non-tariff barriers resulting from the Uruguay Round Agreement (negotiated under GATT between 1986 and 1993) was estimated at about $96 billion, or 0.4 per cent of world GDP. .