America, the EU and Japan would increasingly be tempted by managed trade. The EU and America would redouble their efforts to carve up markets through regional preferential trade agreements that can only undermine the multilateral approach to trade. But the more likely outcome is that ministers will reach some sort of fudged deal in Seattle. It will have limited aims and be strewn with empty promises. After that, negotiations are unlikely to go far for some time at least.
Next year sees an American presidential election.
If there is to be a big push for freer trade, including a successful bid to extract fast-track authority from a recalcitrant Congress, it will have to wait until 2001. It should be a top priority for the next American president, whoever that is.