These developing countries, including India, were for greater attention to be given to the iniquitous market access benefits that have flowed from the Uruguay Round in the area of manufactures. In practice, not only have developing countries lifted non-tariff barriers to trade and bound their tariffs at relatively low levels, but they have unilaterally reduced tariffs to levels way below the promised ceilings. However, the developed countries have failed to respond similarly in crucial areas like textiles and leather, where liberalisation has been tardy and restricted to products where developing country competitive advantages were minimal. Further, they were joined by countries like Japan, in questioning the use of clauses relating to "dumping" of goods in export markets, which allowed the US, in particular, to impose high tariffs on not-so-substantial grounds of unfair competition. In response to this experience the developing countries wanted the summit to pay attention to what were cumbersomely titled "implementation issues".
 
With an eye to exploiting these divisions among the 135-members of the WTO to advance its own domestic political and international trading interests, the US, led by President Clinton, chose to play the role of a bully in a chaotic school yard. It had a wide agenda for a new round, including concessions on agriculture from the EU and Japan, further cuts in tariffs on manufactures, an extension of the moratorium on taxes on e-commerce, and linkages between trade and labour and environmental standards. Its first tactic was to use the demands made by some of the protestors to advance this agenda, signalled by the President's gratuitous welcome to demonstrators pouring into Seattle. Later, while regretting the violence resorted to by a small group, Clinton said that it is important to (selectively) heed the voice of peaceful demonstrators and put the question of worker rights and environmental protection on the agenda. This was not only meant to appease powerful democratic constituencies that matter in the run up to the next Presidential election, but also served US trading interests.
 
Clinton then went on to advocate a working group on labour under the WTO, so as to start the process of making the lack of core labour standards in particular countries a basis for imposing protectionist tariffs and quotas on them. Outside the convention, in an interview to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, he argued that the WTO should frame rules which allow for sanctions against countries violating core labour standards. Finally, in a symbolic gesture he signed in America's support for the treaty on child labour, which calls for a ban on what it treats as the worst forms of child abuse, including the use of child labour. The treaty, Clinton said, should serve as a model for enforcing other labour rights.
 
Given the clout of the US, it was not surprising that WTO chief Mike Moore, chose to follow Clinton's strategy and pick on divisions within the developing-country camp to make a case for freeing trade further. Progress on this front in his view, expressed in different ways, was crucial for the poorest of the developing countries. What he failed to note was the fact the poorer and smaller developing countries were not being heard on the matter. According to the South-North Development Monitor (SUNS), the 67 strong ACP (Africa, Pacific and Caribbean) group of countries complained that their joint views (formally adopted at a meeting in the Dominican Republic) presented at a working group were not reflected in the summary of the chairman. Others were disappointed over the lack of transparency, and said that while the reports of the working group chairs claimed it was the result of consultations, it was not clear who had been consulted and where. As Victor Manuel, the trade representative of El Salvador reportedly put it: "They have continued with the old GATT way of doing business. They think they can meet in small gatherings and then announce that the two or three most important countries have already come to a consensus. It is very hard for small countries to have any influence on this process."