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United States Trade Policy at the Crossroads
Author(s) -
Bhagwati Jagdish N.
Publication year - 1989
Publication title -
world economy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.594
H-Index - 68
eISSN - 1467-9701
pISSN - 0378-5920
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-9701.1989.tb00472.x
Subject(s) - protectionism , politics , schools of economic thought , citation , publishing , sociology , economics , political science , media studies , library science , law , neoclassical economics , international trade , computer science
HE popular perception, and the objective reality, of United States trade policy is that it is in a state of flux; indeed, it may have taken a turn for the worse. * It is not just that the Administration of the United States has succumbed to mounting demands for protection against imports by negotiating a number of significant export restraints. Nor is it that the ‘unfair trade’ provisions in American law for taking anti-dumping actions and levying subsidy-countervailing duties have been captured and misused by protectionists2 even though less, perhaps, than in the European Community. What is most disturbing is the weakened commitment of the United States to multilateralism, manifesting itself in a variety of new ways. The evidence of a fundamental change in trade policy is the new interest in regional arrangements and the departure from the accepted way of ‘doing business’ under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) by asserting that demands can be made for unilateral trade concessions by others and enforced by threats of retaliation.