f-payment crisis in East Asia and Brazil, which led to financial and economic crisis in the world economy as a whole. The second factor is the failure of trade liberalization in most developing countries, to improve and diversify their manufactured exports. Third, trade liberalization has been followed by worsening income distribution within developing and developed countries, and also between them. Finally, the outcry of developing countries that felt that they had made a much greater commitment to liberalize trade than developed countries through the Uruguay Round Agreement and Structural Adjustments. It is these factors, that have brought the North and South to the “table” to reconsider the international trade system. As Julius Katz, Deputy Trade Negotiator for the former Bush Administration states, “Things are going to just limp along until there can be wholesale rethinking of the trade strategy.”There are two main arguments that lead one to believe that the current international trade system is not beneficial to the South or the North. In short these arguments are the existence of current barriers to trade, such as tariffs or quotas; and contradictions within GATT/WTO policy. Although much effort has been given to reduce the amount of barriers to trade within the liberalized system, there are still many in use. In several cases there are mechanism is place that have replaced the discouraged tariffs. This includes non-tariff barriers (NTBs), export and import quotas, licensing schemes, and limits put on goods. These are sometimes considered more detrimental to trade than a straight tariff barrier, “because efficient foreign producers cannot undercut the barriers by reducing their costs and thus their prices.” Furthermore, “A high percentage of products subject to nontariff barriers indicates a protectionist trade regime.” One particular example deals with the actual co...
