A longstanding objective of U.S. trade policy has been to open opportunities for U.S. suppliers to compete on a level playing field for foreign government contracts. The first major breakthough in this area was the 1979 conclusion of the Government Procurement Agreement (GPA), followed by the tenfold expansion of that Agreement during the Uruguay Round negotiations that led to the creation of the World Trade Organization (WTO). The WTO estimates that, under the GPA, the United States and the 26 other GPA Parties provide their suppliers with non-discriminatory access to government tendering procedures worth more that $300 billion annually. In 1995, Mexico agreed to provide comparable access to its government procurement markets under the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). In addition, the Administration continues to push for the reciprocal removal of discriminatory government procurement practices in a wide range of multilateral, regional and bilateral fora.