Editing Reciprocal Tariff Act (section)

=== World changes caused by RTAA ===
As American duties dropped off dramatically, global markets were also increasingly liberalized. World trade expanded rapidly. The RTAA was a US law but provided the first widespread system of guidelines for bilateral trade agreements. The United States and the European nations began avoiding [[beggar-thy-neighbour]] policies, which pursued national trade objectives at the expense of other nations. Instead, countries started to realize the gains from trade co-operation.

Led by the United States and the United Kingdom, international co-operation flourished, and concrete institutions were created. In talks begun at the [[Bretton Woods Conference]] of 1944, the [[International Monetary Fund]] was created. By 1949, the first international board governing trade, the [[General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade]] (GATT), had been established. In 1994, the GATT was replaced by the [[World Trade Organization]] (WTO), which still oversees international trade agreements.<ref name="Oatley">{{cite book|last=Oatley|first=Thomas|title=International Political Economy|year=2010|pages=71–113}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|last=Ruggie|first=John Gerard|title=International regimes, transactions, and change: embedded liberalism in the postwar economic order|journal=International Organization|date=Spring 1982|volume=36|issue=2|series=2|pages=379–415|doi=10.1017/s0020818300018993|doi-access=free}}</ref>

The [[US Department of State]] also found good use of the expansion of free trade after World War II. Many in the State Department saw multilateral trade agreements as a way to engage the world in accordance with the [[Marshall Plan]] and the [[Monroe Doctrine]]. US trade policy became an integral part of [[US foreign policy]]. That pursuit of free trade as [[diplomacy]] intensified during the [[Cold War]], as the US competed with the [[Soviet Union]] for relationships around the globe.<ref name="Oatley"/>