Five years ago in Marrakesh, trading nations from around the globe signed the Uruguay Round agreements, thereby initiating a process aimed at reducing or limiting national protections for agriculture and bringing this sector more fully under international trade rules. But trade ministers at that time understood that the agreement -- signed to reduce market access barriers, export subsidies, and domestic support programs and to establish sound science as the basis for sanitary and phytosanitary measures -- was just the beginning. They therefore reached agreement mandating new agricultural negotiations in 1999. On November 30, trade ministers from 134 countries will convene in Seattle, Washington, for the third ministerial meeting of the World Trade Organization, created by the Uruguay Round as a successor to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. In Seattle we plan to advance aggressively an agenda for a new round of agricultural trade negotiations that will not only seek further reductions in tariffs, nontariff barriers, and subsidies, but also address emerging issues such as biotechnology.

This issue of Economic Perspectives explores the key agricultural issues in the upcoming negotiations, how continued government interference in the marketplace has real economic costs to consumers and producers, and why trade liberalization is as important for emerging economies as it is for advanced economies.