The US is the world's leading trader in goods and services, accounting for about 14 percent of world exports and about 16 percent of imports. Americans benefit directly from this exchange through a greater variety of goods and services at less costly prices.
For over half a century the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and then the World Trade Organization (WTO) have played a key part in reducing barriers to trade, strengthening international laws, and encouraging economic development in a world that has become increasingly integrated. While there has been progress, many have argued that further consideration needs to be given to opening markets, improving the operation of WTO, more effectively integrating labor and environmental concerns, and ensuring that the benefits of trade are shared more widely.

• On average, Americans export about 11 percent of all the goods and services they produce and import about 13 percent of all they consume.
• Many high-tech US manufacturing firms, such as computers and electronics, export 25 percent or more of their total shipments; US wheat and rice growers export over 40 percent of their total production.
• The United States is the world's leading services exporter, accounting for over 18 percent of all commercial service exports.

"Globalization has forced the world community to pay attention to problems in the distribution of its cost and benefits among countries.
The benefits of this integration are distributed unevenly and, in the eyes of many countries, unfairly. Globalizing forces in the last two decades of the 20th century failed to eliminate the dangerous gaps in economic development among countries.
The greatest gain from economic globalization goes to the leading industrial power's, and above all the most powerful currency in the most international payments, the American economy enjoys unparalleled foreign credit. As many a 60 percent of all commercial transactions in international markets are in American dollars. About $400 billion in American bills circulates outside the United States.

Adapted from:
"Perks and Perils of Globalization, A Challenge to the World Order." World Press Review April 2000. Originally from Oleg Bogomolov, Nezavisimaya Gazeta Moscow, Jan 27, 2000.

" . . . the WTO's 135 members will make a huge mistake if they fail to grasp the core belief fueling these unruly protests-that the WTO is far too insular, that it has displayed too little sensitivity for issues like workers' rights and the environment, and that its secretive procedures undermine public trust. It is possible to agree with the WTO's goal of free trade, as this page does, and also to agree with President Clinton that the protesters' causes merit sympathy."

The New York Times Dec 2, 1999

"The economic health of the United States as a whole is increasingly based on international trade. Thanks in part to lower trade barriers and strong exports, our economy is the strongest it has been in a generation. International trade can continue to drive domestic economic growth and job creation, so long as we have the appropriate global framework in place.
The World Trade Organization provides its member countries with exactly that: a forum for negotiating agreements that remove barriers to the free exchange of –goods and services and for resolving trade disputes before nations take unilateral actions that could threaten millions of jobs and global economic progress. It the W70 didn't exist, the nations of the world would have to invent it."

Bill Gates, "Shaping the Future in Seattle,
The New York Times Nov. 29, 1999