It joined the United Nations (UN) and other international organizations, such as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the General Agreement on Tariff and Trade (GATT).
Of course, the problem with the GATT and the problem with the World Trade Organization is the same problem that you have with all so-called free trade organizations.
These are things that I think probably explain much more than the fact that for 60 years global leaders would get together and have a talking shop, because that's really what the GATT was.
Now, the idea of the World Trade Organization, just like the Gap before it, was to create an arena wherein there could be a large degree of cooperation between states to quote-unquote facilitate trade.