Trade Discrimination - Yesterday's Problem?

Existing tariff levels of many countries, and particularly of developing countries and on agriculture for most countries, still give plenty of scope for trade discrimination. For non-tariff barriers there is substantial scope for discrimination within and beyond the transitional arrangements of the Uruguay Round agreements, as well as under free trade agreements, customs unions and developing country preferences. Criteria are suggested which could ensure that preferential trading arrangements would promote rather than undermine the development of a liberal, multilateral trading system. However actual preferential arrangements generally fall well short of satisfying these criteria. The proliferation of preferential (that is discriminatory) arrangements suggests there is a real possibility that the negative aspects of discrimination could be a problem of tomorrow, and not just of yesterday.