ABSTRACT
In the immediate aftermath of World War II, the United States attempted to forge an international institution to codify and monitor a set of specific trade principles. The promise of US aid compelled its cautious wartime allies to attend negotiations between 1946 and 1948 to create the International Trade Organization (ITO). After eighteen months of negotiations, the broad-ranging ITO, to be managed by an eighteen-member executive board, was central to the Havana Charter. Yet despite the persistent US initiative and post-war American enthusiasm for international institutions, the United States never ratified the agreement to form the ITO. Why not?
