The 1932 Democratic campaign platform pledged to lower tariffs. After winning the election, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the now - Democratic Congress passed Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act of 1934. This act allowed the President to negotiate tariff reductions on a bilateral basis, and also treated such a tariff agreement as regular legislation, requiring a majority, rather than as a treaty requiring a two - thirds vote. This was one of the core components of the trade negotiating framework that developed after World War II. The tit - for - tat responses of other countries were understood to have contributed to a sharp reduction of trade in the 1930s. After World War II this understanding supported a push towards multi-lateral trading agreements that would prevent similar situations in the future. While the Bretton Woods Agreement of 1944 focused on foreign exchange and did not directly address tariffs, those involved wanted a similar framework for international trade. President Harry S. Truman launched this process in December 1945 with negotiations for the creation of a proposed International Trade Organization (ITO). As it happened, separate negotiations on the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) moved more quickly, with an agreement signed in October 1947; in the end, the US never signed the ITO agreement. Adding a multilateral "most - favored - nation '' component to that of reciprocity, the GATT served as a framework for the gradual reduction of tariffs over the subsequent half century.
the general agreement on tariffs and trade (gatt) was part of american attempts to increase
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