In the wake of what happened in Seattle, many are already gnashing teeth and pulling hair over the World Trade Organization. But instead of desperately trying to paper over differences and ignore crucial problems, it is time to examine the WTO critically and consider U.S. options -- inside and outside the WTO.

The negotiating agenda that the Clinton administration is pressing for is positive, if modest. Increasing trade liberalization in the agricultural and services sector and slashing tariffs in a series of industrial sectors are all laudable trade objectives.

Unfortunately, the price for those modest steps forward could be quite high. With leadership from Japan, much of the world has demanded that anti-dumping rules be negotiated yet again in new WTO negotiations.

This demand is quite popular with the ""internationalist'' community in the United States, which has a rather narrow perspective on anti-dumping laws. In its adherents' simplistic view, anti-dumping laws impose tariffs on foreign products; tariffs are bad, and therefore anti-dumping laws should go.

This viewpoint ignores the fact that the global marketplace is still dominated by foreign cartels, trusts and government subsidies. These greatly distort trade and allow foreign companies in countries from Japan to Mexico to engage in predatory dumping in the U.S. market.

Now, many of these same countries demand that further limitations on anti- dumping laws be included on the agenda for new WTO negotiations. But they show no willingness to end the many trade distortions that they maintain, and that make anti-dumping laws an essential element of U.S. trade policy.

Anti-dumping laws proved to be the only effective response to the recent steel-import crisis. Without them, layoffs in the U.S. steel industry caused by imports from the Japanese steel cartel, Russian state-sponsored steel mills and the heavily subsidized Brazilian steel industry would have been much larger.

Nevertheless, even though the last round of WTO anti-dumping reforms is still not fully implemented, some in the United States apparently are willing to allow the topic to be reopened as the price for a new WTO round.

The other element of the price for a new WTO round appears to be continuing to ignore obvious connections between global trade and environmental and labor issues.

The WTO has a poor record of recognizing environmental protection as a goal as important as trade liberalization. In fact, the WTO has struck down important U.S. environmental statutes aimed at protecting sea turtles and dolphins.

Beyond that, many countries, notably India and Egypt, object to any discussion of labor issues in the context of trade, even though labor is undeniably an important input in every product in international trade.

It is true that the WTO is a trade organization and there is a limit on how far it should go to address other issues. But that limit should not mean ignoring absolutely all labor and environmental issues, as some countries suggested in Seattle.

The reality is that trade directly affects labor and environmental issues, and WTO dispute settlement panels regularly rule on important U.S. environmental statutes, such as the Clean Air Act and the Endangered Species Act; the connection simply cannot be ignored.

Although the protesters in the street made this point emphatically, many WTO members still opposed even minimal steps to recognize the problems and open the WTO process to input from environmental and labor advocates.

The WTO cannot be expected to address all of the environmental and labor issues raised by protesters, but it should strike a new balance in considering connections between environmental and labor matters and trade liberalization.

The WTO is unquestionably a valuable institution, but it also has limitations. Some recent dispute-settlement panels have ruled against the United States on critical issues, such as the privatization of subsidized industries and the protection of sea turtles. Certainly, the United States will occasionally legitimately lose disputes, but several recent panel decisions strain credulity.

Further, the membership of the WTO is so broad that the entity seems unable or unwilling to address important new issues. And the price asked to begin new negotiations is simply too high.

In coming weeks, the same old tired chorus of ""internationalists'' undoubtedly will urge the United States to breathlessly return to the WTO bargaining table to give up more and more for less and less. But the world's most important economy has other options that it should consider instead.

The United States could negotiate responsible bilateral agreements, launch new multilateral trade negotiations among only those countries prepared to go beyond the WTO, and take unilateral actions -- like aggressively employing anti-dumping laws or banning imports of goods made with child labor -- to advance its objectives. Collectively, these options may promote U.S. objectives better than a new WTO round.