Later this year, Congress will formally vote on whether to withdraw the United States from the World Trade Organization. Although the WTO is a controversial topic, there seems little doubt that Congress will vote to keep the country in it.

If the issue were decided by a national referendum, however, the outcome could be different. As the fiasco at the WTO ministerial meeting in Seattle demonstrated in dramatic fashion, even at a time of unprecedented economic prosperity, many Americans have deep concerns over the WTO.

Surprisingly, the events in Seattle also demonstrated that developing countries also have serious reservations about the WTO and free trade in general.

These concerns run so deep that the entire consensus in favor of the global trading system is in danger of evaporating at home and abroad. Unless a new consensus can be built, it is unlikely that any new, major international trade agreements will be struck.

The policy consensus that underlies the WTO really dates to the negotiations just after World War II that launched the modern world trading system.

The system -- then known as the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade -- was built on the simple premises that freer trade was good for all economies and that increased trade improved the chances for peace.

In most ways, this policy has paid benefits beyond what its creators could have imagined. Trade barriers, especially tariffs, have been dramatically reduced. World trade and investment have increased sharply. Certainly, this is one of the leading causes of impressive global economic growth in the last half of the 20th century.

But despite this success, the system is showing real signs of strain.

In the United States -- the world's most prosperous country and its largest trading country -- signs of trouble are everywhere. In many polls, public opinion has been against the North American Free Trade Agreement and the WTO. Two-thirds of Americans surveyed oppose establishing normal trade relations with China.

Owing in part to this public sentiment, in recent years, the president has not even been able to get critical fast-track authority from Congress to negotiate new trade agreements.

Ironically, the developing world, which many Americans cite as the reason for their concern about trade policies, also has growing reservations about free trade. In the end, it was not street protesters but the unwillingness of the developing world to commit to a negotiating agenda that killed the WTO session in Seattle.

Free trade has allowed many former developing countries, such as South Korea, to post dramatic economic gains in recent decades. But many of today's developing countries believe that free trade does not work for them.

Many of these nations believe that the world trading system unfairly favors the developed countries. They resent any effort to address new issues, such as labor rights, for fear that they might be used against them.

Regardless of the merits of these criticisms, the fact remains that unless a new consensus can be built in favor of free trade at home and abroad, no major new trade agreements will be negotiated.

Four steps may help to build the new consensus:

Education. The U.S. government, the American business community and international institutions should all increase efforts to educate their constituencies on the economic benefits of trade. Domestically, one excellent step in that direction would be to curb the endless flow of exaggerations that seem to characterize all public debates on trade.

Adjustment policies. In the United States, insufficient resources are devoted to addressing the concerns of those who lose from free trade. As the steel-import crisis demonstrated, the nation's primary import adjustment law, Section 201, is in need of reform. The Trade Adjustment Assistance program, which aims to support retraining and other adjustment in sectors having difficulty competing with imports, is consistently underfunded.

New issues. Some of the protesters in the streets of Seattle had real, if overstated, concerns. Efforts must be made to address valid and relevant environmental and labor issues involving trade. This will require adjusting international trade negotiations, but it is possible.

New negotiating strategies. The concerns of the developing world may prove more difficult to address than those of the U.S. public. As a result, serious thought must be given to other alternatives, such as bilateral trade agreements or a "WTO-plus" if developing countries continue to block WTO progress.

U.S. trade policy and the world trading system have served the United States well, but both need reform if success is to continue. Resistance to change is, at best, futile and, at worst, counterproductive. It is time to build a new consensus that can last for another 50 years.