The reformed negotiations under GATT are called ‘Kennedy Round’ because these were made possible by the US Trade Expansion Act of October 1962, sponsored by the late President John F. Kennedy.
On May 6, 1964, The Trade Negotiations Committee consisting of ministers of the participating nations conducted the Kennedy Round of trade negotiations.
9. The Doha Round is the latest round of trade negotiations among the WTO membership. Its aim is to achieve major reform of the international trading system through the introduction of lower trade barriers and revised trade rules. The work programme covers about 20 areas of trade.
The main objectives of the Kennedy Round were to: The European trade integration signaled by the creation of the European Economic Community (EEC) in the 1957 Treaty of Rome led the United States to fear its own products would be shut out of the European market.
The Kennedy Round was the sixth session of General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) multilateral trade negotiations held between 1964 and 1967 in Geneva, Switzerland. Congressional passage of the U.S. Trade Expansion Act in 1962 authorized the White House to conduct mutual tariff negotiations, ultimately leading to the Kennedy Round. Participation greatly increased over previous rounds. Sixty-six nations, representing 80% of world trade, attended the official opening on May 4, 1964, at the Palais des Nations. Despite several disagreements over details, the director general announced the round’s success on May 15, 1967, and the final agreement was signed on June 30, 1967—the last day permitted under the Trade Expansion Act. The round was named after U.S. President John F. Kennedy, who was assassinated six months before the opening negotiations.
Since President Lyndon Johnson had little chance of success in reauthorizing the Trade Expansion Act, its July 1, 1967 deadline served as the effective deadline for the Kennedy round.
It was the last GATT round to have tariff reduction as its primary focus. However, it was the first GATT round to deal with non-tariff issues, such as dumping, a practice whereby a company exports a product at a price lower than the price it charges in its home market.
Members of the so-called "Bridge Club"—the United States, European Economic Community, Japan, and the UK —led the negotiations and offered linear cuts. Six other European countries joined them in linear cuts.
The final agreement was signed on June 30, 1967. However, within the United States, Congress repealed several provisions of the round of global tariff cuts, hurting the future credibility of the United States in worldwide trade negotiations.
In regard to agriculture, it was agreed that the Kennedy Round shall provide for acceptable conditions of access to international markets for agricultural commodities. In March 1965, the Trade Negotiations Committee took up the procedures for negotiations on agriculture.
The reformed negotiations under GATT are called ‘Kennedy Round’ because these were made possible by the US Trade Expansion Act of October 1962, sponsored by the late President John F. Kennedy. This Act gave power to the President (the US Administration) to negotiate tariff reductions of, in general, up to 50 per cent and also prepared ...
The tariff negotiations in Kennedy Round were concentrated largely on products of major export interest to the developed nations, to the neglect of the export needs of the developing countries. Thus, at the UNCTAD meeting in 1964, the delegates unanimously opined that GATT has not fully satisfied the trade policy and economic growth of the less developed countries.
Very intensive negotiations, however, took place in April-May 1967, as the time-table for completion of the Kennedy Round was fixed for 30th June, 1967. The agreements materialised under the Kennedy Round were in the form of several ‘packages covering essential elements’ of trade.
On May 6, 1964, The Trade Negotiations Committee consisting of ministers of the participating nations conducted the Kennedy Round of trade negotiations.
At times it seemed doomed to fail. But in the end, the Uruguay Round brought about the biggest reform of the world’s trading system since GATT was created at the end of the Second World War .
The Uruguay Round. It took seven and a half years, almost twice the original schedule. By the end, 123 countries were taking part. It covered almost all trade, from toothbrushes to pleasure boats, from banking to telecommunications, from the genes of wild rice to AIDS treatments. It was quite simply the largest trade negotiation ever, ...
The seeds of the Uruguay Round were sown in November 1982 at a ministerial meeting of GATT members in Geneva. Although the ministers intended to launch a major new negotiation, the conference stalled on agriculture and was widely regarded as a failure. In fact, the work programme that the ministers agreed formed the basis for what was to become the Uruguay Round negotiating agenda.
This draft “Final Act” was compiled by the then GATT director-general, Arthur Dunkel, who chaired the negotiations at officials’ level.
They did so in September 1986, in Punta del Este, Uruguay. They eventually accepted a negotiating agenda that covered virtually every outstanding trade policy issue.
The agenda originally built into the Uruguay Round agreements has seen additions and modifications. A number of items are now part of the Doha Agenda, some of them updated.