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By the late 1940s, representatives of the American government had met several times with representatives of other major nations to design a postwar international trading system that would parallel the international monetary system.
However; although the US Congress would not support another international institution, in 1945 it had given the US president the authority to negotiate a treaty governing international trade by extending the 1934 Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act. This led to the establishment of GATT in 1947-a treaty whereby 23 member countries agreed toa set of rules to govern trade with one another and maintained reduced import tariffs for other members. The GATT treaty did not provide for a formal institution.
Over the next 40 years, GATT grew in membership and in its success at reducing barriers to trade. GATT members regularly met in what came to be known as negotiating rounds. These rounds were primarily focused on negotiating further reductions in the maximum tariffs that countries could impose on imports from other GATT members. The success of these rounds is evident. The volume of trade among WTO members stood at 25 times its 1950 volume.