Trade and American Leadership
The Paradoxes of Power and Wealth from Alexander Hamilton to Donald Trump

The global trading system lies at the intersection of US power and wealth, but is today in grave danger of collapse.

Craig VanGrasstek (Author)

9781108476959, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 3 January 2019

500 pages, 20 b/w illus.
23.5 x 16 x 3.2 cm, 0.84 kg

'Craig VanGrasstek offers a sweeping account for understanding the trade policies of Alexander Hamilton, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and Donald Trump - both nationalists and free traders - within one consistent geopolitical framework.' Gary Clyde Hufbauer, Peterson Institute for International Economics

From the nation-building of Alexander Hamilton to the trade wars of Donald Trump, trade policy has been a key instrument of American power and wealth. The open trading system that the United States sponsored after the Second World War serves US interests by promoting cooperation and prosperity, but also allows the allies to become more independent and China to rise. The case studies in Trade and American Leadership examine how the value of preferential trade programs is undercut by the multilateral liberalization that the United States promoted for generations, and how trade sanctions tend either to be too economically costly to impose or too modest to matter. These problems are exacerbated by a domestic political system in which the gains from trade are unevenly distributed, power is fragmented, and strategies are easily undermined. Trade and American Leadership places special emphasis on today's challenges, and the rising danger of economic nationalism.

Part I. Introduction and Overview: 1. The domestic diplomacy of trade and the paradoxes of power and wealth
2. The theory and practice of the Anglo-American hegemonies
3. After hegemony: power, wealth, and trade policy since the Cold War
Part II. The Domestic Diplomacy of Trade: 4. The domestic diplomacy of trade agreements
5. The expanding scope of trade and the contagion of conflict
6. Washington slept here: how Trump caught politicians napping on trade
Part III. Trading with Allies: 7. Defence vs. opulence: sea power and law in Anglo-American hegemonies
8. The sun also sets: the Japanese challenge to the US auto industry
9. Canada and the domestic diplomacy of US trade policy
Part IV. Trading with Adversaries: 10. The strategy and domestic diplomacy of sanctions
11. Russo-American relations and the paradox of sanctions
12. Trading with the NME: the Chinese challenge to US hegemony
Part V. Trading with Developing Countries: 13. The strategy and domestic diplomacy of trade preferences
14. The elusive integration of the Americas
15. War, peace, and trade in the Middle East
Part VI. Trade and Trump: 16. Power and wealth in the Trump administration and beyond.

Subject Areas: International economic & trade law [LBBM], Political economy [KCP], Trade agreements [KCLT1], Politics & government [JP], History of the Americas [HBJK]