Americans Reaping Benefits of U.S. Membership in WTO | Daniel Griswold | Cato Institute: Commentary

Americans Reaping Benefits of U.S. Membership in WTO | Daniel Griswold | Cato Institute: Commentary: "WTO membership encourages the United States to keep its own markets open, for the benefit of U.S. consumers and import-using industries. It also promotes trade liberalization abroad, which opens markets and keeps them open for U.S. exporters. WTO agreements put those commitments in writing so there is less temptation for governments to backslide and re-impose damaging trade barriers under short-term political pressure."

"since China joined the WTO in 2001, its average tariff imposed on goods of special export interest to the United States has dropped from 25 percent to 7 percent.

WTO agreements also restrict the ability of foreign governments to place quotas on imports, to impose domestic regulations that unfairly discriminately against U.S. products, and to subsidize domestic industries that compete against American firms."

"Appealing through the WTO has helped the U.S. government to remove barriers to the sale of U.S. semiconductors in China, beef and rice in Mexico, genetically modified crops in the European Union, apples in Japan, milk in Canada, 2,700 specific product categories in India (including high-technology products, petrochemicals, textiles, and agricultural products), and copyrighted sound recordings in Japan."