American Trade Politics: Second Edition

This is a thoroughly revised and updated edition of the most influential and widely read analysis of the US trade policymaking system.

Awarded the American Political Science Association's Glady Kammerer award for the best book on US national policy, American Trade Politics examines how the US policymaking process enabled the United States to reduce its own import barriers and lead the world toward a more open trading regime. Since the 1970s, enormous political changes, compounded by unprecedented US trade deficits, have brought institutional erosion and some backsliding on trade policy.

This second edition summarizes the latest trade policy controversies and congressional activism with fresh material on such matters as the omnibus trade legislation of 1988 and the 1991 debate over fast track authority for negotiations with Mexico toward a North American Free Trade Agreement.