An important class of exceptions is the so-called commercial means. These are laws that allow domestic industry to demand import duty increases in excess of the rates committed and applied in a discriminatory manner. They are referred to as remedies because they aim to correct unfair trading practices and unexpected changes in the pattern of trade that harm sectors that compete with imports. The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) was never conceived as an agreement in its own right. Instead, it should be just part of a much broader agreement to establish an International Trade Organization (IO). The ITO should encourage trade liberalisation by establishing guidelines or rules that Member States have agreed to adopt. As a result, early exclusions and abandonments of GATT led to a maze of restrictions on agricultural imports and export subsidies that have since boosted world production and trade in these product lines (see protectionism). The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is an international organization created on July 22, 1944 at the Bretton Woods Conference, created on December 27, 1945, when 29 countries signed the IMF articles of the agreement. It originally had 45 members.

The IMF`s stated objective was to stabilize exchange rates and support the reconstruction of the global international payment system after World War II. Countries contribute to a pool of money through a quota system from which countries facing payment imbalances can temporarily borrow money.