This panel explores the United Nations Conference for Trade and Development (UNCTAD) as a forum for transnational exchanges of people and ideas. It investigates the attempts to reform global trade made by newly independent African countries, Latin American states, and the USSR between the late 1940s and the late 1970s. It focuses in particular on both overlapping and diverging interests, revealing UNCTAD as a key site of encounter between the Global South, the socialist world, and the West. Vivien Chang investigates US reactions to UNCTAD initiatives, Frank Gerits analyzes the contribution to UNCTAD that came from independent Africa countries such as Ghana, Alessandro Iandolo explores the Soviet drive to boost trade through UNCTAD, and Stella Krepp looks at the impact of economists from the Economic Commission for Latin America (CEPAL) and the Organization of American States (OAS) on UNCTAD. The general argument of the panel is that international political economy can and should be studied as transnational history.