THE URUGUAY ROUND OF TRADE NEGOTIATIONS - INDUSTRIAL AND GEOGRAPHIC EFFECTS IN THE UNITED-STATES

No other international trade negotiations have been so comprehensive a s the Uruguay Round, in which participants agreed to liberalize trade in agricultural products, to reduce tariffs on industrial products by an average of more than one-third, and to establish a World Trade Orga nization. This article examines the effects of the Uruguay Round agree ments to liberalize trade in goods, focusing primarily on the United S tates. The analysis suggests that the agreements will have only a negl igible impact upon employment in nearly every U.S. manufacturing secto r, in every state, and in the country as a whole. The agreed trade lib eralizations (as represented by the sectoral employment changes likely to result) seem to bear little relationship to the nation's revealed comparative advantages (weighted by employment). By and large, both th e United States and its trading partners apparently resisted granting sizable trade liberalizations in sectors where the other possessed a m arked comparative advantage. If so, both parties will be impeded from further specializing in the sectors of their greatest comparative adva ntage, and world income will grow by less than if both had been more f orthcoming.