From the AP:
The price of wheat has more than tripled during the past 10 months, making Americans' daily bread — and bagels and pizza and pasta — feel a little like luxury items.
...
Earlier this week, representatives of the U.S. baking industry went to Washington to ask the Bush administration and Congress to address the record wheat prices.
Lee Sanders, senior vice president of the American Bakers Association, said her group isn't asking for a wheat export moratorium, which countries such as Ukraine, Russia and Argentina have enacted. But the industry does want export policies reviewed to ensure domestic bakers have enough affordable flour.
It's not completely clear to me what they are going for here. They say it's not an export "moratorium" they are after, but they do want "export policies" changed to make sure that domestic bakers have "enough affordable flour." Perhaps not a complete moratorium, then, but some kind of export restriction?
Export restrictions would clearly violate GATT Article XI:1. But what about the Article XI:2(a) exception for "[e]xport prohibitions or restrictions temporarily applied to prevent or relieve critical shortages of foodstuffs or other products essential to the exporting contracting party"? That might work, although I don't know the facts well enough to have a good sense of it.
And, of course, there is always the export tax, which, for the most part, is a loophole in WTO rules.
