In early 1942, American and British officials began preparing proposals to promote economic stability and prosperity in the post-war world. Harry Dexter White, Special Assistant to the US Secretary of the Treasury, and John Maynard Keynes, Adviser to the British Treasury, each drew up plans to create organizations that would provide financial support to countries with short-term balance of payments deficits; Such assistance should ensure that these countries do not pursue protectionist or predatory economic policies in order to improve their balance of payments. While both plans provided for a world of fixed exchange rates, which were believed to be more conducive to the expansion of international trade than floating exchange rates, they differed in several key respects. As a result, bilateral and multilateral meetings of Allied financial experts were held from 1942 to 1944 to agree on a common approach. An agreement was finally reached at the United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference in July 1944, a gathering of delegates from 44 nations who met in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire. The two most important achievements of the Bretton Woods conference were the creation of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), commonly known as the World Bank. The IMF`s mission was to oversee a fixed exchange rate system focused on the U.S. dollar and gold, serving as a forum for consultation and cooperation, as well as a provider of short-term financial assistance to countries with temporary balance of payments deficits. The IBRD was responsible for providing financial assistance for the reconstruction of war-torn countries and the economic development of the least developed countries. In July 1945, Congress passed the Bretton Woods Agreements Act, which established the United States.

Entry to the IMF and the World Bank, as well as to both organizations, was formally created five months later. The fixed exchange rate system established at Bretton Woods lasted for nearly three decades; It was only after the exchange rate crisis of August 1971, when President Richard M. Nixon suspended the convertibility of the dollar into gold, and in February/March 1973, that floating exchange rates became the norm for major industrial democracies. An agreement on international trade has proved more difficult to achieve. One of the most controversial issues was the system of preferential tariffs introduced in 1932 between members of the British Commonwealth, with trade within the Commonwealth subject to lower tariffs than trade between Commonwealth countries and the rest of the world. Officials such as Cordell Hull rejected imperial preferences on both ideological and practical grounds – the United Kingdom and Canada, both members of the system, were the two largest trading partners of the United States – and demanded their abolition; However, many British and other Commonwealth officials were in favor of maintaining preferences, at least until the United States agreed to reduce the high Smoot-Hawley tariffs of 1930. After more than four years of negotiations on these and other issues – such as the rules that would govern customs negotiations and the structure of a proposed new organization to monitor international trade – an agreement was finally reached in 1947. Twenty-three countries meeting in Geneva from April to October 1947 concluded the first round of post-war tariff negotiations, which led to a reduction in tariffs and imperial preferences, as well as a draft charter for a new institution, the International Trade Organization (ITO). The participants also signed the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), which aims not only to implement the agreed tariff reductions, but also to serve as a provisional codification of the rules governing trade relations between its signatories until the establishment of the ILO. In November 1947, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Employment met in Havana to consider the draft Charter of the ITO; four months later, in March 1948, representatives of 53 countries signed the completed Charter. However, strong opposition in the US Congress meant that the ITO was never launched. Instead, it was gatt that regulated post-war international trade relations for nearly fifty years.

Under the auspices of GATT, eight rounds of trade negotiations resulted in significant tariff reductions among its members before being replaced by the World Trade Organization in 1995. This vision was articulated in the Atlantic Charter issued by Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill at the end of the Atlantic Conference in August 1941. The fourth point of the Charter committed the United States and the United Kingdom to “provide all States, large or small, victorious or defeated, on equal terms, with access to the world`s trade and raw materials necessary for their economic prosperity”, while the fifth point stressed their commitment to “full cooperation among all nations in the economic field with a view to ensuring the protection of the economy for all, improving labour standards, economic progress and social security. Both countries set out these principles in Article VII of their February 1942 Agreement on Grants to Loans and Leases. In that article, the United Kingdom agreed that in exchange for it would work with the United States to develop measures to increase “the production, employment, exchange and consumption of goods”, to eliminate “all forms of discriminatory treatment in international trade”, to eliminate barriers to trade and, more generally, to achieve the objectives set out in the Atlantic Charter. The Bretton Woods Agreement established two Bretton Woods institutions, the IMF and the World Bank. Officially established in December 1945, the institutions have stood the test of time and serve as important pillars for international capital financing and business activities around the world. In July 1945, Congress passed the Bretton Woods Agreements Act, which authorized U.S. membership in the IMF and IBRD. The two organizations officially emerged on December 27, 1945.

The Bretton Woods fixed exchange rate system lasted most of three decades; It was only after the dollar exchange crises of August 1971 (when President Richard Nixon suspended the dollar`s convertibility into gold) and February/March 1973 that floating exchange rates became the norm for the currencies of the major industrialized countries. . About 730 delegates from 44 countries met at Bretton Woods in July 1944 with the main purpose of creating an efficient exchange rate system, preventing competitive currency devaluations, and promoting international economic growth. The Agreement and the Bretton Woods system were at the heart of those objectives. The Bretton Woods Agreement also created two important organizations – the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank. While the Bretton Woods system was dissolved in the 1970s, the IMF and the World Bank remained strong pillars for international currency exchange. From 1942 to the spring of 1944, numerous bilateral and multilateral meetings of Allied financial experts were held to agree on a common approach. Finally, on 21 April 1944, allied leaders issued a “Joint Declaration of Experts on the Establishment of an International Monetary Fund”. This declaration served as the basis for the Bretton Woods negotiations.

After a pre-conference in Atlantic City in mid-June 1944, the Bretton Woods Conference met on 1 July. Three weeks later, delegates signed the Final Act of the United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference, which contained charters setting out the objectives and mechanisms of the IMF and IBRD. .