ABSTRACT
Mr. President, on July 8, 1916, in a speech on the House floor, Cordell Hull, then a young Congressman from Carthage, TN - the same town from which our distinguished Vice President, presiding officer in exceptional circumstances comes - called for a permanent international trade congress. It was a hugely prescient idea. He understood that the inability of the European powers - the established ones - to accommodate the enormously increased economic importance of Germany had, in considerable measure, led to the First World War. This World Trade Organization is no more than a rather pale image of the International Trade Organization which was contemplated at the end of World War II. In fact, the United States is in the best position among trading nations to take great advantage of the more open markets that come with the Uruguay round.
