With respect to customs duties, any advantage, favour, privilege or immunity granted by any contracting party to any product originating in or destined for any other country are accorded immediately and unconditionally to the like product originating from or destined for the territories of all other contracting parties, under the principle of MFN treatment.  GSP, FTA and other preferential trading arrangements are exceptions to the MFN treatment.

See Multilateral Trade Negotiations.

The Arrangement Regarding International Trade in Textiles (known as the Multi Fibre Arrangement), which allowed countries to maintain discriminatory quantitative restrictions on imports of textiles and clothing, was terminated in 1994 with the entry into force of the World Trade Organization.  The WTO Agreement on Textiles and Clothing provided for a transitional period for integrating the textiles and clothing sector into the GATT 1994.  The Agreement on Textiles and Clothing and all restrictions thereunder terminated on January 1, 2005. The expiry of the ten-year transition period of ATC implementation means that trade in textile and clothing products is no longer subject to quotas under a special regime outside normal WTO/GATT rules but is now governed by the general rules and disciplines embodied in the multilateral trading system.

Trade negotiations between GATT Members aiming at eliminating or reducing tariff and non tariff barriers.  The Uruguay Round was the eighth round of MTN under the GATT. The current WTO trade round, the Doha Round, was launched by WTO members in 2001.