Two epochal forces are sweeping the world today: the spread of new technology and the spread of free markets. Their combined effect has been to let capital, labor, and production move more freely across borders. This freedom of movement has allowed for a more efficient allocation of resources, which has made for a more productive, wealthy world.

Globalization has brought far away communities across the world closer together. It has brought Internet access to Rwanda, CNN to Azerbaijan, Japanese investors to the U.S. It has also brought unprecedented wealth and economic activity. The world is richer than ever, and increased free global trade is one of the main reasons.

The United States has many sources of power in the pursuit of its goals. The global economy demands economic liberalization, greater openness

Prices are supposedly the best indicator of the supply of any particular good relative to how much people want of it. If you have a surplus of a good and not many people want it, the price is going to be quite low. If a particular good is in demand, the prices are going to go up. This is a key idea, which lies behind not only trade policy, but also liberalization policies that we've seen in most countries around the world over the last 20 years.

The United States is the world's loudest champion of free trade and open markets. At the same time, it has held fast to protectionist policies in clothing, shipping, sugar, broadcasting and other industries. For consumers, the price is steep. The U.S. has hit imports of frozen orange juice concentrate with a 30% customs duty, even though the average U.S. tariff is only about 3%. Duties on imported glassware, porcelain and china have been as high as 38%. Rubber boots and shoes, 20%; luggage, 16%; canned tuna, 12.5%.

Critics of the WTO often charge that the process lacks transparency and that the most important debates and decisions take place in secret without the knowledge of or participation of member nations and civil society. Transparency is the degree to which trade policies and practices, and the process by which they are established, are open and predictable.

Americans can't seem to make up their minds about trade. Those public doubts linger in the midst of the longest peacetime expansion in U.S. history. They simmer while the country enjoys the lowest poverty rate in 20 years and the highest percentage of home ownership ever. They bubble up even with unemployment at an all-time low for minorities, a 46-year low for women, a 30-year low for all Americans.

Trade experts say tariffs and other protectionism make the economy less efficient and force consumers to pay higher prices and taxes to subsidize jobs. Stiff U.S. tariffs on imported ball bearings, for instance, has shielded jobs in domestic manufacturing. But Americans pay $438,356 for every job saved, according to research by economists Gary Hufbauer and Kimberly Elliott. In other industries, protectionism has been even more costly: $758,678 per job in softwood lumber; $933,628 in luggage making; and more than $1 million in benzenoid chemical manufacturing, by the economists' calculations. Overall, they reckon, protectionism costs the U.S. economy more than $70 billion a year, or 0.8% of gross domestic product.

Before any advances in free trade can take place, the WTO itself needs reform. It has to become more open and transparent. It is increasingly asked to adjudicate on sensitive issues such as food safety and environmental protection that have become the subject of trade disputes in a globalizing economy. It must explain its decisions or risk undermining support for free trade in general. To further boost its legitimacy, the WTO could do with an executive committee, modeled on the IMF's executive committee, as proposed by Sylvia Ostry, a former Canadian trade negotiator. Such a forum could eliminate difficult policy issues and help forge agreement on how far the WTO should trespass on countries' sover

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