The Third Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organization (WTO) was held in Seattle from November 30 to December 3, 1999. Trade ministers and other officials from the WTO's 135 member nations met in an unsuccessful attempt to plan negotiations to further deregulate free trade. Tens of thousands of activists for many causes gathered to protest what they saw as the WTO's favoring of corporate interests over social and environmental concerns.

This image shows Madeleine Albright (1937-2022) and others on a panel at a pre-conference event on November 29, 1999. Albright was the US Secretary of State from 1997 and 2001 and was the first woman to hold that office. One of the US's priorities at the conference was trade in agricultural goods. The US and other food-exporting countries pushed for more open markets and lower tariffs, while the European Union embraced protectionist policies such as export subsidies. Albright vowed that the Clinton administration would end policies that gave other nations trade advantages.

Caption information source: "Farming emerges as tough issue," by Robert Gavin, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, November 30, 1999, page A18.