Introduction Multilateral bodies play a regulatory role in the global economic environment by acting as higher authorities than their member country governments. They serve to provide a level playing field for all member states or increase the cumulative economic competitiveness of the regional blocks they cover. This paper appraises the European Union and the World Trade Organization in the context of the global economic environment. It further looks at how Foreign Direct Investment and Multinational Corporations influence international business growth. Finally the paper examines opportunities and threats in the global business environment and how best organizations should respond to the identified challenges. Importance of World Trade and the World Trade Organization in the development of Global Business Opportunities World trade facilitates specialization of countries and companies by making it possible to acquire commodities not produced inside a country. World trade also allows countries and international companies to move surplus commodities to areas that a facing a high demand. Different countries have different capacities to produce commodities and possess a diverse mixture of the economic factors at their disposal (Wade, 2003). Therefore at a given time, a country enjoys an advantage while another faces a disadvantaged bargain when trading a given commodity in the international market. To protect domestic markets and earnings, countries impose restrictions to trade of certain commodities. Additionally, countries also compensate producers within their jurisdiction for the cost of production to a given extent to make the pricing of the commodities favorable in the domestic or international market. To create a level playing field for international trade, the World Trade Organization and its predecessor GATT were formed. The World trade Organization (WTO) is an agreement of member countries on common rules and regulation that govern international trade at a near global level. The WTO acts as a forum where trade disputes between member country governments are settled. The WTO continues to accept new memberships in form of countries and nongovernmental organization. The increase in membership comes with new issues and goals for the WTO. In order to protect their local industries, governments impose importation quotas on goods that disrupt local prices because their international price is lower than the local price. These quotas give a defined volume of imports that allowance to a country without inflating supply levels and hurting local prices. Even when the price margin of domestic and international prices is desirable for importers, they cannot continue to import after the import quota limit has been reached. As a result, demand of the good in the international market, made up by importers, lowers and so does the international price. To free up trade and promote development the GATT 1947 agreement and its successor the WTO 1995 agreement generally rule out quantitative restrictions in international trade. To this end, the agreements allow the use of duties, taxes or other charges to regulate trade (Mattoo and Subramanian, 2008). The WTO aims to realiz