Moreover, as required by Section 125 of the Uruguay Round Agreements Act (19 U.S.C.2535), beginning with March 1, 2000, and every fifth year thereafter, such report, transmitted by thePresident, must "include an analysis of the effects of the WTO Agreement on the interests of theUnited States, the costs and benefits to the United States of its participation in the WTO, and thevalue of the continued participation of the United States in the WTO." As pointed out in the section on Disapproval Resolutions contained in the Statement ofAdministrative Action, a part of the documentation which is required to be transmitted by thePresident to the Congress together with the draft of the implementing bill for the Uruguay RoundAgreements Act,
[t]he provision creates a mechanism that will permitperiodic Congressional review of U.S. participation in the WTO. (2)
Following the submission of such quinquennial report and its review by Congress, Congresscan withdraw its approval of the WTO Agreement, leading to the termination of the United States'participation in the WTO, through the enactment of a joint resolution disapproving the originalapproval of the WTO Agreement. Legislative Procedure

The legislation lays out a specific, expedited (fast-track) procedure to be followed by theCongress in the consideration of the withdrawal measure. A joint resolution of withdrawal may be introduced in either House by any member of thatHouse (Sec. (This provision by its very nature makes the withdrawal resolution nonamendable.) (Hence, like all expedited procedures, this procedure can be superseded by the House'sadoption of a resolution reported by the Rules Committee providing for a different procedure.) As in the debate on the withdrawal resolution introduced in 2000 (see section of PastActivity on next page), the salient arguments in favor of the resolution as put forward by itssupporters in the debate are likely to be: the encroachment on U.S. sovereignty by virtue of U.S.membership in the WTO and submission to the obligations under the WTO Agreement; usurpationof Congress' constitutional power "to regulate Commerce with foreign Nations"; violation of the U.S.Constitution by implementing the WTO Agreement as a Congressional-Executive agreement ratherthan a treaty; and, more tangibly, the perceived, for the United States adverse, results of the WTOdispute settlement mechanism (16) in cases where the United States is either the complainant or thedefendant. Such applicabilitywould not cease due to the U.S. withdrawal from the WTO. (20) On June 9, 2005, theHouse disapproved withdrawal resolution H.J.Res. 27 by a vote of 338-86.
The Uruguay Round Agreements Act (URAA) legislatively approved the World TradeOrganization (WTO) Agreement and the specialized agreements annexed to it. It also enacted theprovisions implementing the many obligations the United States undertook under them, and containsprovisions (Section 125) establishing the legislative procedure for Congressional withdrawal of suchapproval.
Initiation of such withdrawal action is predicated on the transmission by the Administrationof a mandatory quinquennial report, next due by March 1, 2005, analyzing the costs and benefits ofpast U.S. participation in the WTO as well as the value of continued U.S. participation. Thereupon,a privileged joint resolution may be introduced by any Member to withdraw the Congress' approvalof the WTO Agreement provided by the URAA.
The legislative procedure for such withdrawal basically follows Section 152 of the Trade Actof 1974, which provides for the enactment of joint resolutions disapproving certain trade-relatedactions, which for this purpose has been modified specifically by Section 125 of the URAA. Theprocedure provides for a (nonmandatory) introduction of the resolution, with mandatory,nonamendable language, and specific expedited (fast-track) consideration.
Although the immediate function of the withdrawal provision is to create a mechanism thatwill permit periodic Congressional review of U.S. participation in the WTO and the provisionfocuses specifically on withdrawing the approval of the WTO Agreement, it has been considered inCongress and in the civil society in the broader context of United States' withdrawal from actualparticipation (i.e., membership) in the WTO.
On June 9, 2005, the House defeated a resolution ( H.J.Res. 27 ) to withdrawapproval of the WTO Agreement by a vote of 338-86. A similar resolution in the year 2000 failedby a wider margin (363-56) in the House, and a withdrawal resolution was not even introduced inthe Senate. A resolution offers Congress the opportunity to debate the costs and benefits of U.S.participation in the WTO. In this context, Congressional concern with U.S. trading partners,particularly the European Union and Canada, and various other contentious issues emerged in thefloor debate and statements on H.J.Res. 27 . Such issues are dealt with in detail in CRS Report RL32918 , World Trade Organization (WTO): Issues in the Debate on U.S. Participation, by [author name scrubbed] and [author name scrubbed].
This report, which will be updated as needed, sets out the background of the issue, thefunctional timetable and requirements for taking the legislative action for such withdrawal, and therelated WTO procedure. It also describes past and current activity under the withdrawal provisionand suggests the probable consequences of the withdrawal resolution, if enacted and implemented.