GATT, the "General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade", was the predecessor of the WTO, and facilitated the gradual, global relaxation of trade barriers, and standardization of trade and customs. It gets outshined a lot by regional agreements that went much deeper, particularly in Europe, but it shouldn't be ignored as a contributor to the liberalization of trade during the Cold War.
GATT was a replacement for a proposed "International Trade Organization" that like the IMF and World Bank was supposed to institutionalize multilateral arrangements and preserve the peace post-war. The ITO of course didn't get accepted at Bretton Woods, so GATT came in a little later.
I bring this up after perusing J.M. Keynes' "The Economic Consequences of the Peace". Part of his proposed solutions for the fundamental flaws of Versailles and the other peace treaties was a free trade union organized under the auspices of the League of Nations, designed to ensure that the new nations of central and eastern Europe remained economically integrated with the rest of the world, and improve the economic ties of Europe and the British Empire in general. Naturally, this proposal didn't go anywhere in OTL.
Can we imagine an arrangement regarding tariffs and trade being made in whatever peace agreements follow the conclusion of WWI? A full-scale ITO or WTO is unlikely, but an institutionalized regular forum of trade talks that establish broad, basic rules and multilateral concessions might not be politically impossible.
A Versailles GATT (using Versailles as a shorthand for the overall set of peace treaties) might be organized in part for the reasons Keynes suggested. The new nations of central and eastern Europe are going to be isolated and impoverished without the trade access they enjoyed as part of the defunct Empires. Building a Little Entente would be more effective if those new nations can avoid dependence on Germany or economic isolation.
Besides that, there is the matter of German trade and customs. Preventing Germany from using trade barriers to foster internal self-sufficiency could be valuable, as would making German industry dependent on France, Belgium, and Britain. If Germany pays reparations through internal taxes, the open trade system ensures that the Entente economies are able to benefit from German trade. Now, perhaps an agreement on trade is used to moderate the reparations demanded by France and Belgium, in the sense that they are explicitly permitted a favorable market in exchange. A German economy dependent on Western capital, markets, and industries could be argued to be more favorable to Western interests than an impoverished one, and one that could cultivate indigenous German interests in favor of continued peace.
What's most critical of all this though is that any GATT analogue regularly meets to obtain new multilateral agreements. Extending the reasoning from the previous paragraph, agreements on tariffs and trade could be analogous to the OTL conferences, plans and agreements that sought to ease the burden of German reparations and inter-allied debts. Concessions on trade are likely to be far cheaper than the volume of debts and reparations that they might replace, and trade at least would be of long-term benefit to the economies in question.
Besides Keynes, were there any advocates for discussions on trade at the time? Could Wilson perhaps be persuaded to push the matter? Or might a GATT evolve from British compromise proposals, seated as they were between Napoleon and Jesus Christ?
GATT was a replacement for a proposed "International Trade Organization" that like the IMF and World Bank was supposed to institutionalize multilateral arrangements and preserve the peace post-war. The ITO of course didn't get accepted at Bretton Woods, so GATT came in a little later.
I bring this up after perusing J.M. Keynes' "The Economic Consequences of the Peace". Part of his proposed solutions for the fundamental flaws of Versailles and the other peace treaties was a free trade union organized under the auspices of the League of Nations, designed to ensure that the new nations of central and eastern Europe remained economically integrated with the rest of the world, and improve the economic ties of Europe and the British Empire in general. Naturally, this proposal didn't go anywhere in OTL.
Can we imagine an arrangement regarding tariffs and trade being made in whatever peace agreements follow the conclusion of WWI? A full-scale ITO or WTO is unlikely, but an institutionalized regular forum of trade talks that establish broad, basic rules and multilateral concessions might not be politically impossible.
A Versailles GATT (using Versailles as a shorthand for the overall set of peace treaties) might be organized in part for the reasons Keynes suggested. The new nations of central and eastern Europe are going to be isolated and impoverished without the trade access they enjoyed as part of the defunct Empires. Building a Little Entente would be more effective if those new nations can avoid dependence on Germany or economic isolation.
Besides that, there is the matter of German trade and customs. Preventing Germany from using trade barriers to foster internal self-sufficiency could be valuable, as would making German industry dependent on France, Belgium, and Britain. If Germany pays reparations through internal taxes, the open trade system ensures that the Entente economies are able to benefit from German trade. Now, perhaps an agreement on trade is used to moderate the reparations demanded by France and Belgium, in the sense that they are explicitly permitted a favorable market in exchange. A German economy dependent on Western capital, markets, and industries could be argued to be more favorable to Western interests than an impoverished one, and one that could cultivate indigenous German interests in favor of continued peace.
What's most critical of all this though is that any GATT analogue regularly meets to obtain new multilateral agreements. Extending the reasoning from the previous paragraph, agreements on tariffs and trade could be analogous to the OTL conferences, plans and agreements that sought to ease the burden of German reparations and inter-allied debts. Concessions on trade are likely to be far cheaper than the volume of debts and reparations that they might replace, and trade at least would be of long-term benefit to the economies in question.
Besides Keynes, were there any advocates for discussions on trade at the time? Could Wilson perhaps be persuaded to push the matter? Or might a GATT evolve from British compromise proposals, seated as they were between Napoleon and Jesus Christ?