<P> At the same time, the negotiations on the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) in Geneva advanced well, and by October 1947 an agreement was reached: on October 30, 1947 eight of the twenty - three countries that had negotiated the GATT signed the "Protocol of Provisional Application of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade". Those eight countries were the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg . </P> <P> In March 1948, the negotiations on the ITO Charter were successfully completed in Havana Charter . The Havana Charter (formally the "Final Act of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Employment") provided for the establishment of the ITO, and set out the basic rules for international trade and other international economic matters . It was signed by 56 countries on March 24, 1948 . It allowed for international cooperation and rules against anti-competitive business practices . </P> <P> The Charter, proposed by John Maynard Keynes, was to establish the ITO and a financial institution called the International Clearing Union (ICU), and an international currency; the bancor . The Havana Charter institutions were to stabilize trade by encouraging nations to "net zero", with trade surplus and trade deficit both discouraged . This negative feedback was to be accomplished by allowing nations overdraft equal to half the average value of the country's trade over the preceding five years, with interest charged on both surplus and deficit . </P> <P> The Charter never came into force, in part because in 1950 the United States government announced that it would not submit the treaty to the United States Senate for ratification . While repeatedly submitted to the US Congress, the charter was never approved . The most usual argument against the new organization was that it would be involved into internal economic issues . On December 6, 1950 President Truman announced that he would no longer seek Congressional approval of the ITO Charter . Because of the American rejection of the Charter, no other state ratified the treaty . Elements of the Charter would later become part of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). </P>

The ito was replaced (with congressional approval) by the gatt