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Debates over trade liberalization vs. protectionism have becoming increasingly relevant as the world moves through a contentious era of economic globalization. This is particularly true in the United States, where an elite consensus on the merits of free trade has fractured in recent years. While we know a good deal about the economic and cultural determinants of trade opinion, we know little about how attitudes toward government may matter. Here, I address this oversight by examining the relationship between political trust and trade support. I do this with cross-sectional and panel data from the American National Election Studies (ANES) and the National Annenberg Election Surveys (NAES), and a survey experiment fielded through Amazon's Mechanical Turk (MTurk). Overall, I find that there is a positive and substantively significant relationship between political trust and mass support for free and open "pro-trade" policies. I attribute this to greater citizen confidence that government will pursue trade deals in the national interest and mitigate any perceived risks associated with free trade. These findings help us to better understand the determinants of public opinion toward trade policy and underscore the consequences of political trust. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Biden administration's strategy in the Indo-Pacific is of twofold interest. On the one hand, it breaks with the approach that the United States has always advocated since the 1980s, namely the general opening of markets through free trade agreements. And on the other hand, the economy, more than trade, is at the center of the negotiations, with security, technology, and the resilience of value chains as the main issues. Is this a turning point? After placing the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity (IPEF) in its historical context, the author makes seven observations about it, to conclude that the initiative currently raises more questions than it provides answers to the United States economic security. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the 1780s, Dutch Patriot revolutionaries celebrated the independence of the United States as an event that would revitalize their downtrodden economy and society at large. Why would they believe that the newly independent United States could resurrect the Dutch Golden Age? This article demonstrates that, from the Seven Years' War onward, political and economic thought and practice in the Dutch Republic became deeply entangled with the unfolding of the American Revolution. Ideas about commerce and innovative practices that emerged in the context of a rapidly changing Atlantic world proved foundational to the Dutch Patriot Revolution of the 1780s. In this way, the transatlantic connections between the American and Dutch Patriots were longer and more complex than previously argued. As a result of these connections, the American Revolution forged the political and economic program of the Dutch Patriot Revolution, which would ultimately signal the beginning of the end of the two-hundred-year-old Dutch Republic. In the 1780s, Dutch Patriot revolutionaries celebrated the independence of the United States as an event that would revitalize their downtrodden economy and society at large. Why would they believe that the newly independent United States could resurrect the Dutch Golden Age? This article demonstrates that, from the Seven Years' War onwards, political and economic thought and practice in the Dutch Republic became deeply entangled with the unfolding of the American Revolution. Ideas about commerce and innovative practices that emerged in the context of a rapidly changing Atlantic world proved foundational to the Dutch Patriot Revolution of the 1780s. In this way, the transatlantic connections between the American and Dutch Patriots were longer and more complex than previously argued. As a result of these connections, the American Revolution forged the political and economic program of the Dutch Patriot Revolution, which would ultimately signal the beginning of the end of the two-hundred-year-old Dutch Republic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

International economic regime has been interrupted by recent disputes involving national security exception under article XXI GATT. Along with the spirit behind the establishment of WTO, the Panel conclude that it has jurisdiction on the matter as well as the matter is justiciable. Nonetheless, this decision is opposed by two big economies, Russia and United States. Against this background, this research aim to consider whether this approach is justified from trade liberalization perspective using normative research method. Furthermore, it proceeds to analyze a proposal to build National Security Committee as solution to contemporary ineffectiveness of the implementation of WTO litigation process. This research shows that WTO's Panel approach to exercise its jurisdiction regarding the invocation of article XXI is indeed the best approach to protect a stable and predictable trading system. However, the establishment of National Security Committee will not resolve the enforcement problem of WTO's decision towards this matter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, many states have undertaken to green their free trade agreements (FTA). As the pace of this evolution towards greener trade relations continues to accelerate, it has also been met with resistance. The inclusion of environmental commitments in FTAs has sometimes been dismissed as an attempt by high-income countries to level the playing field for their market actors by raising environmental standards abroad. Against this background, this article aims to investigate what underlying motive(s) (high-income) states pursue when they negotiate environmental provisions. Using the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) as a case study, it is argued that it is possible to rely on the legalization of these commitments to unravel treaty parties’ motives for negotiating such rules in the first place. In the case of the USMCA, it is found that the agreement’s environmental commitments could be interpreted as mirroring concern either for the environment or for unfair foreign competition. A closer look at the negotiation process leading to the adoption of the agreement suggests that it was mainly – although certainly not exclusively – out of environmental concerns that stringent environmental commitments were included in the USMCA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The federal market is a cornerstone of every federal polity. It would be difficult to imagine American federalism without the internal free trade constitutionalized by the Dormant Commerce Clause (DCC). This Article provides a criticism of the Supreme Court's DCC case law and proposes a new approach that takes economic reality into account. The Article demonstrates that the Supreme Court's DCC case law, owing to its countenancing unnecessary restrictions of trade, fails to fulfill the constitutional function one may attribute to a federal market. First, it seems the Supreme Court replaced the inquiry that fits the Constitution with one that it felt comfortable with. Although the case law promises to suppress state protectionism, in fact, it deals merely with naked protectionism and, thus, gives states a very wide playing field to shelter local economic interests. Second, the Supreme Court's case law is inconsistent in the sense that it does not do what it promises to do. The Court promises to suppress state protectionism but, instead, it invalidates only those measures that are outrageously protectionist; it examines existential necessity but ignores the question of extensional necessity. Furthermore, it promises a two-step analysis that distinguishes between the restriction of trade and its justification, but the analysis usually does not get to the second step, since only those measures are pronounced restrictive in the first place that could not be sufficiently justified in the second place. The paper proposes a substantive sliding-scale approach that takes economic reality into account. This implies that the current two-limb test should be replaced with a three-limb test providing for an increasingly closer scrutiny of symmetric, asymmetric, and discriminatory impact. It demonstrates that the idea of suppressing state protectionism implies two requirements of necessity. The first one, labeled by this Article as "existential necessity," requires that completely unnecessary restriction of trade be ruled out. The second one, baptized as "extensional necessity," filters out restrictions that go beyond what is necessary and turns on the existence of less restrictive regulatory alternatives. This calls for the comparison of policy options in terms of trade restrictiveness and effectiveness but involves no genuine value choice. The proposed doctrine's novelty lies in the introduction of extensional necessity, which is patently overlooked in the Supreme Court's current case law. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the leading commercial drivers applied in developing countries, especially in economies with conservative policies, is free trade agreements or tariff preferences with strategic economic zones worldwide. The countries of Latin America and the Caribbean are no exception. The United States is the region's leading trading partner; however, several countries have signed trade agreements with the European area in recent years. In this paper, we ask ourselves to what extent these agreements are beneficial. In addition, we evaluate the impact on exports with other world regions. Mainly, we analyze the effect of commercial firms in the European zone on the level of exports of the other partners, especially with the United States. The results consistently suggest that signing trade agreements with the European zone generates an export displacement effect. In other words, although the gross level of exports to the European zone increases, the level of exports to other regions of the world, especially to the United States, grows faster than other countries that do not even have agreements with the Europeans. Generally, exports do not have a statistically significant effect on signing trade agreements with the European zone. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyzes the impact of partisanship under divided government on the approval process of the US-Colombia–Trade Agreement (FTA). Focusing on the case of the FTA between the United States and Colombia, this study examines how partisan and ideological dimensions in the executive and legislative branches shape trade policy decision making. Drawing on existing literature, this study explores the determinants of FTA approval under divided governments using individual and district-level characteristics. In this case, the findings indicate that party affiliation significantly influences members of Congress’ voting behavior on FTAs, with Democrats generally being more skeptical and Republicans more supportive. The article also explores how changes in government positions and the presence of a divided government affected President Barack Obama’s stance on the FTA, highlighting the importance of republican support in Congress. Overall, this research contributes to the understanding of the relationship between divided government and FTA approval, shedding light on the role of partisanship and ideology in shaping US trade policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the possible role of US trade liberalization in explaining Puerto Rico's deindustrialization. In order to address this issue, time series techniques were used. The results of the Granger Causality Test suggest that the imports made by the US from Mexico, Canada, Ireland, and Costa Rica do not explain Puerto Rico's deindustrialization. Therefore, no causal relationship was found between the imports made by the US from its NAFTA partners and the countries where the corporations that benefited from Section 936 relocated with the deindustrialization of Puerto Rico. Besides, the impulse response exercise suggests that in the first period, deindustrialization explains its variability by 100%, and in the final period, it explains 95.47%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After the Second World War, the United States emerged as the global trading partner, evident as a signatory of significant trade agreements. Despite clear advantages stemming from trade agreements, there are dynamics that hamper an expansion of trade based on agreements to apply the rules to broaden Free Trade Agreement ("FTA") benefits in the form of lowering tariffs, products eligible for duty-free or reduced duties, and other means of harmonizing the classification of traded products. Despite the best efforts of individual countries and regional entities, a Free Trade Area of the Americas ("FTAA") failed to materialize as a result of competing interests which included the United States' seeking subregional trade agreements to advance its trade agenda. Recent developments may warrant renegotiations of a hemisphere trade agreement, including new bilateral trade and investment deals within the Americas. These events serve to renew interest within a framework for the benefit of OAS members to collectively manage trade issues in the Western Hemisphere, creating the world's largest economic corridor designed to improve market access for firms by streamlining customs administration, and reducing technical barriers to trade. This paper advances the support for a FTAA to promote and further consolidation of democracy and the other pillars of the Organization of the American States ("OAS"). Cooperation among its members is critical in light of the nexus of the pillars (democracy, human rights, security, and development) that are essential to liberal democracy. The importance of the OAS as a facilitator of FTAA negotiations is apparent as historic events and institutional advances illustrate a need for regional economic cooperation as essential to the common welfare and prosperity of the peoples of the continent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We quantify the role of global production linkages in explaining spillovers of U.S. monetary policy shocks on country‐sector stock returns. We estimate a structural spatial autoregression (SAR) model that is consistent with an open‐economy production network framework. Using the SAR model, we decompose the total impact of U.S. monetary policy on global stock returns into direct and network effects. Nearly 70% of the total impact is due to the network effect of global production linkages. Empirical counterfactuals show that shutting down global production linkages halves the total impact of U.S. monetary policy shocks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Subnational governments in the United States have taken the lead on many aspects of the response to the COVID‐19 pandemic. Variation in government activity across states offers the opportunity to analyze responses in comparable settings. We study a common and informative activity among state officials—state legislators' attention to the pandemic on Twitter. We find that legislators' attention to the pandemic strongly correlates with the number of cases in the legislator's state, the national count of new deaths, and the number of pandemic‐related public policies passed within the legislator's state. Furthermore, we find that the degree of responsiveness to pandemic indicators differs significantly across political parties, with Republicans exhibiting weaker responses, on average. Lastly, we find significant differences in the content of tweets about the pandemic by Democratic and Republican legislators, with Democrats focused on health indicators and impacts, and Republicans focused on business impacts and opening the economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study analyzes aggregate data on trade flows to examine the performance of bilateral free trade agreements (BFTAs) between the United States and 11 BFTA nations in a two-dimensional approach. In line with the literature, this study applies the gravity model and analyzes the effect of the treatment using Poisson pseudo-maximum likelihood (PPML) panel data from 1992 to 2017. We use the PPML as an alternative methodology to an ordinary least squares model, as it can treat zero trade values and lead to unbiased estimates and different consistencies. We consider the trade in goods but excluded services because of the different nature of trade for services. Moreover, this study highlights the quantitative performance of BFTAs without considering the industry level to compare the overall benefits for the trade flows from the U.S. as an exporter to BFTA countries and vice versa. It thus adds to the debate on the effect of FTAs on trade flows and conducts pre-FTA and post-FTA analyses to compare the volumes of exports and imports during both periods. Findings vary according to the direction of trade; notably, some trading partners increased their trading volume to 388%. In sum, this paper provides a collective current state assessment to demonstrate the most plausible reasons for the effects of the 11 BFTAs, in addition to informing policymakers on the lessons learned from each BFTA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers information about the impact of the North American free trade agreements, including North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement (CUSMA), on the environment, specifically from a Canadian perspective. It provides a brief history of NAFTA and its environmental provisions, examines the environmental outcomes of the agreement, and compares the environmental provisions of NAFTA and CUSMA.

Over the years, there has been a tremendous increase in enrollment in higher education as well as the cost of attendance. This article comparatively analyzes the higher education finance between the United States of America (U.S.A.) and Ghana, taking into consideration the goals of higher education, enrollment and expenditure, and the various sources of finance available to students in both countries. The source of education finance between both countries is examined through the lens of neoliberalism, which prioritizes capitalism, free trade, and market in public institutions, specifically higher education. While there are disparities in the financing of higher education in both countries, there is a similarity in the limited access to higher education and funding by students from low socioeconomic backgrounds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: The patent linkage system upgraded patent challenges to an important factor in granting timely market approval for generic drugs. We aim to understand patent challenges and identify the factors that are associated with successful patent challengers under the patent linkage system in South Korea.Methods: We constructed a novel dataset that combined information on manufacturers with detailed data about their patent challenges after introduction of the patent linkage system. Based on the number of successful patent challenges, manufacturers were categorized into non-challengers, passive challengers, and aggressive challengers. Then, two types of logistic models were applied to identify the factors associated with successful and aggressive challengers.Findings: Only 39 active ingredients were challenged by 77 manufacturers from March 2015 to December 2019. Of 171 manufacturers, 94 (55 %) were non-challengers, 58 (34 %) were passive challengers who had succeeded in fewer than 4 patent challenges, and 19 (11 %) were aggressive challengers who had succeeded in 4 or more patent challenges. Higher sales, more employees, and a greater number of reimbursed drugs were associated with being a patent challenger, while a greater number of reimbursed drugs was associated with being an aggressive challenger.Conclusion: Some manufacturers utilize patent challenges to strengthen their product portfolios in the market. However, under the patent linkage system, the frequency of patent challenges is limited in South Korea compared to the United States. In particular, patent challenges against drugs in injection form and biologics are very rare. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the 2000s, the United States signed free trade agreements (FTAs) with several Latin American countries. These treaties were among the first to contain specific chapters on telecommunications, which seek to promote competition and foreign investment in this market. This paper uses a difference‐in‐differences econometric strategy to evaluate the impact of these exogenous reforms in the telecommunications industry. The results show that the FTAs prompted an estimated reduction of 45.5% in average revenue per user in the subscribing countries, and that this competitive effect was mainly due to the decrease of 34% in the prices of mobile calls. FTAs are not found to have significant impacts on fixed and mobile phone penetration, nor on private investment in these services, reflecting their lower profitability after the strengthening of competition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Copyright of Codrul Cosminului is the property of Codrul Cosminului and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Contemporary economic globalization is typically seen as a product of both trade and economic liberalization after the Second World War and of technological advances that have made it possible to overcome coordination and management of geographically dispersed production units. Trade liberalization and technological advances were certainly important variables, but I argue that it was neo-protectionist American policies of the early 1980s that provided the initial catalyst for globally networked production processes. American protectionism encouraged Japanese investment in the United States that allowed US car manufacturers to learn the essentials of network manufacturing as practiced by Japanese transplants in the United States. In the next stage of global network manufacturing, liberal trade played a much more pivotal role because the global supply chains could not obviously be maintained without liberal trade. In this paper, I also discuss the likelihood of a reversal and suggest that globalization is unlikely to reversed in a significant way. Liberal trade is essential to the integrity of global supply chain networks, but these new production processes have themselves created a firewall against future systemic protectionism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article describes the approaches behind and assessment of deep free trade agreements (FTA) and the shallow 2020 U.S.-China Phase One agreement. Topics discussed include the differences between deep and shallow trade agreements particularly in terms of border measures, emphasis of the China's trade agreements on reciprocal exchanges of market access commitments, and potential of the latter agreement to lead to trade diversion discussion.

In addition to being the world's largest economy, the United States (US) has been the foremost driver of consumer spending, free trade and open skies policies. Trade-driven economic growth and air freight markets have been commonly linked in air transport research. Despite increased security after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, international air imports to the US has continued to grow at a rate faster than consumer spending. This paper aims to evaluate whether gravity models are robust enough to forecast and accurately account for substantial economic shocks such as the Global Financial Crisis (GFC). Our research suggests that US demand for air freight is highly sensitive to transport costs, competition from sea freight and consumer spending patterns of perishable, low value and high value commodities across the 19 commodity groups examined, rather than manufacturing income or factors associated with product origin, which is all the more interesting in the context of the recent protectionist rhetoric of the US administration. • Developing gravity models for forecasting air cargo demand. • Fitness of model for short to medium term planning. • Combination of commodity and regional analysis. • Our models accurately account for external shocks such as the GFC. • US air cargo demand highly sensitive to consumer spending. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The characterization of the United States as a liberal hegemon seeking to uphold free-market capitalism against the illiberal state capitalism of China and other emerging powers has become commonplace, along with the attendant notion that American economic openness has been exploited by the unfair trade practices of other states. Given their dominance in US political discourse and role in shaping contemporary policy—including fuelling Trump's trade wars and aggressive unilateral trade actions against all of the United States' major trading partners, his attacks on the World Trade Organization, and talk of a "new Cold War" between the United States and China—these claims merit far greater scrutiny. In this article, I challenge the stark dichotomy frequently drawn between American "free-market capitalism" and the "state capitalism" of its emerging challengers, arguing that this forms part of a strategic narrative deployed for political purposes, including legitimating the United States' use of aggressive trade policy measures. An examination of the American hegemon's actual trade and industrial policies complicates this characterization. Despite presenting itself as a promoter and defender of free trade, I show that the unifying logic of US trade policy has always been the promotion of American economic interests: the United States has engaged in considerable state intervention and trade protectionism, both to shield vulnerable industries and support others to achieve and maintain their global dominance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article looks at the changes in the North American supply chain in light of the U.S.-Canada-Mexico Agreement (USMCA), the U.S.-China trade war and the COVID-19 pandemic. Topics discussed include the emergence of the automobile industry as the sector most affected by the modernization and innovation under the USMCA, impact on businesses of the tariffs imposed by the U.S. on Chinese imports, and the aggravation of pressures from the USMCA due to carbon footprint concerns related to COVID-19.

We focused our attention on the causes of the current trade war between the United States and China. The article analyzes the influence of electoral processes in the USA on the choice between free trade and protectionism. The relationship between China’s accession to the WTO, mutually beneficial cooperation with the United States, and trends in the trade balance between major trading partners have been determined. The article illustrates the main mutual claims between the United States and China, which led to the outbreak of «the largest trade war in economic history». We determined the main stages of the conduct of «military operations» and characterized the directions of the conflict escalation. The attention is focused on the losses in the trade war; the main beneficiaries from the «trade disagreements» were identified. We proposed an alternative opinion on the real consequences of the trade war for the warring parties. The article studies the impact of trade wars on world GDP and the national economies of the largest countries of the world. Attention is focused on the existence of «phantom trade» for finding the way out of sanctions and tariffs. The role of Ukrainian business in trade wars is examined in detail. We analyzed the main trade wars Ukrainian enterprises are involved in and possible results for the business. The article gives the author’s vision of the impact of the trade war on the trade balance between Ukraine and the key participants in the trade war: the United States and China. We concluded which branches of the Ukrainian industry are in priority for developing trade relations with China. The article highlights the main barriers to the development of trade with the United States and the reasons for the decline in the export of Ukrainian goods. We predicted how the improvement in relations between the United States and China will affect the role of Ukrainian business in the context of world trade wars. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

International trade policy in the United States prior to 1934 was determined by a Congress that represented the interests of diverse and changing domestic production. Southern agriculture pursued free trade policies to enable access to foreign markets for their goods, while Northern industry sought protection against imports that would stymie their nascent development. By 1934, it became clear that trade policy needed to be streamlined and accelerated to address the rapidly changing trade landscape. In order to stave off some of the destruction of the Great Depression, Congress temporarily delegated its power to regulate trade to the President to manage international trade policy. Since that first delegation, Presidents capitalized on this delegation to pursue a policy of free trade, leading to phenomenal domestic economic growth, vast expansion of global trade, and a more peaceful world. This policy has been turned on its head since 2018 when the Trump Administration began using this delegated authority not in the pursuit of free trade and democracy, but rather to solicit political support from certain domestic industries and to punish uncooperative countries. Much of this new strategy to trade is rooted in the national security exception present in U.S. trade law. In this paper, I argue that the national security exception created by the 1962 Trade Expansion Act during the Cold War is meant to be extraordinarily narrow and rarely used, and that any broad application of this exception would likely compromise the world trade system altogether. I suggest that Congress, where trade policy power lies, should reassert control over trade policy and guide the President's hand in the pursuit of beneficial economic goals for the United States as a whole. I will begin this paper with a historical exploration of trade policy through the lens of protective tariffs. I will then emphasize the development of the national security exception in domestic trade law, paying special attention to the most recent iteration of this exception being applied today. I will then compare this national security exception in domestic law to the essential security exception found in international trade law to better understand its meaning and application on a global scale. Finally, I will review domestic caselaw and legislation related to the delegation of trade policymaking authority to the President and argue how this power is being abused by the Trump Administration and what should be done to change that. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The United States, Canada, and Mexico have ratified a multilateral trade agreement (the "USMCA") that contains a highly unusual provision. This provision (referred to as the "Poison Pill") is intended to deter the signatories from entering into a free trade agreement (FTA) with any "non-market country." The Poison Pill was introduced by the United States in the wake of the US-China trade war and was most likely directed at deterring Canada from entering into an FTA with China. This Article argues that the Poison Pill is functionally an expulsion clause (as opposed to a withdrawal clause) which violates the USMCA parties' preexisting obligations under the WTO Agreement regarding FTAs. This is because the Poison Pill raises barriers to trade and is unnecessary for the formation of an FTA. Paradoxically the Poison Pill also depends on the WTO Agreement's Most Favored Nation (MFN) provision to more effectively limit a nation's ability to enter into FTAs with a "non-market country.". It is troubling that the United States used the coercive and unjustified imposition of tariffs, under the guise of national security, as negotiating leverage in USMCA negotiations. The United States has also indicated that it may include Poison Pills in future FTAs. This Article proposes two strategies for minimizing the impact of the Poison Pill on nations who may be coerced into accepting it: entering into overlapping multilateral FTAs and forging economic relationships outside of the "FTA-box." If the United States cannot credibly commit to WTO rules then non-US nations will have to turn to other superpowers (e.g., China and the EU) and large trading blocs to counterbalance an overreaching United States. These strategies align with a broader imperative: dealing with a United States that will not commit itself to a rules-based trading order with even its long-standing allies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study the causal link between trade openness via free trade agreements (FTAs) and obesity rates. When applying a difference‐in‐differences approach by exploiting the year a country entered a free trade agreement with the United States during the period 1990–2016. We find a positive and causal impact of FTAs on obesity rates, which are statistically and economically significant. We show that our findings are robust to placebo tests, the use of synthetic control methods, and a maximized sample. Furthermore, we show that when using an event studies approach the equal trends assumption holds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores why citizens favor protection despite the economic case for free trade. It argues that due to a lack of training and in an environment of stable prices, many individuals are not aware of the consumption benefits. Even when they are aware, citizens tend to discount these benefits due to media coverage of the employment costs and loss aversion. The article presents survey evidence from an American sample, showing that a belief in lost jobs is more strongly associated with trade preferences than a belief in lower prices. Given that the former pushes citizens toward less favorable trade attitudes, it also presents evidence from a priming experiment, testing if attitudes can be moved in a more favorable direction with positive information. Factual information about the consumer benefits has no effect, but information about the employment effects shifts attitudes positively. In the present environment, it thus appears more effective to prime pro-trade attitudes by appealing to jobs than to prices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyses the reduction in duties under US President James Polk, enshrined in the Walker Tariff of 1846, as a proxy for understanding the interrelationship between the executive, the legislature, and broader societal developments. It concludes that congressional debates on the subject were constrained by three parameters: the perceived threat of sectionalism, fears of international belligerence, and the legacy of colonialism. First, memories of the earlier Nullification Crisis of 1833 determined that the political discourse was characterised by a striking emphasis on national unity. Second, contrary to the usual association of free trade with peace, the Walker Tariff was necessarily debated in terms of compatibility with ongoing warfare. Lastly, Britain's shadow coloured congressional language, with both sides exploiting simultaneous reductions of tariffs in the former colonising power to advance their rhetorical ends. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using survey data from the American National Election Study (ANES) and aggregate data on Congressional districts, this article assesses the roles that economic and social factors played in Donald J. Trump's 2016 "populist" presidential candidacy. It shows the hollowness of claims that economic issues played little or no role. While agreeing that racial resentment and sexism were important factors, the article shows how various economic considerations helped Trump win the Republican nomination and then led significant blocs of voters to shift from supporting Democrats or abstaining in 2012 to vote for him. It also presents striking evidence of the importance of political money and Senators' "reverse coattails" in the final result. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The US missionaries Elijah Bridgman and Samuel Wells Williams leveraged authority from extraterritorial printing in South China to rebut the oratorical eloquence of ex-President John Quincy Adams on the First Opium War. They did this by editing Adams's 'Lecture on the War with China' (1841) for The Chinese Repository that they published monthly from Guangzhou, Macao, and Hong Kong. Adams presents the British as righteous Christians defending 'free trade' from pagan China. The missionaries' editorial strategies challenged Adams on points of fact to signal disagreement with him over the moral implications of opium smuggling and China's status under international law. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After decades of supporting free trade, in 2018 the United States raised import tariffs and major trade partners retaliated. We analyze the short-run impact of this return to protectionism on the U.S. economy. Import and retaliatory tariffs caused large declines in imports and exports. Prices of imports targeted by tariffs did not fall, implying complete pass-through of tariffs to duty-inclusive prices. The resulting losses to U.S. consumers and firms that buy imports was $51 billion, or 0.27% of GDP. We embed the estimated trade elasticities in a general-equilibrium model of the U.S. economy. After accounting for tariff revenue and gains to domestic producers, the aggregate real income loss was $7.2 billion, or 0.04% of GDP. Import tariffs favored sectors concentrated in politically competitive counties, and the model implies that tradeable-sector workers in heavily Republican counties were the most negatively affected due to the retaliatory tariffs. JEL Code: F1. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Economic self-interest has been central to explaining individual trade preferences. Depending on the theoretical trade model different variables influence individuals' attitude towards globalization and existing research has come to different conclusions as to whether individuals' preferences are dependent on skill level, income or the sector of employment. Other studies depart from economic self-interest by arguing that it is not self-interest that motivates individuals to form their preference, but country-level economic factors (sociotropic considerations) instead. We argue that one needs to approach trade preference formation from an information-based perspective and we test experimentally how people react if they are aware that they personally or nationally will gain or lose from trade and which of the two aspects are more important. By using survey experiments embedded in a representative national survey in the U.S. we are able to differentiate whether a person was triggered by ego- or sociotropic benefits/costs of free trade. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Who supports trade in the US Congress? We uncover the ideological space of trade voting, focusing on trade agreements and development policy as two fundamental cleavages around globalization. We then cluster members of Congress into coherent voting blocs, and identify the most pro-trade voting blocs in each Chamber. We find that these blocs: cross party lines; are ideologically heterogeneous; and are over-represented on the committees with jurisdiction over trade. We then examine two leading theories of Congressional voting – on constituency characteristics and campaign contributions – and find support for each using our learned voting blocs. Members of pro-trade blocs have defended their constituents' and contributors' interests by speaking out to confront the Trump administration's protectionism. We conclude that unsupervised learning methods provide a valuable tool for exploring the multifaceted and dynamic divisions which characterize current debates over global economic integration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the 2016 election cycle, both Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders received roars of approval from supporters when discussing plans to roll back decades of trade liberalization and more specifically North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). In the past, protectionist politicians who failed to follow through on promises paid little electoral cost, arguably because NAFTA received relatively little media or political attention after it was passed. Now in the spotlight, could trade policies cost President Trump voters in 2020? I argue that the highly partisan nature of today's trade discourse – a new dimension for trade opinion – creates obstacles for electoral accountability because preferences follow rather than drive partisanship. Drawing on previous research and a 2017 survey experiment fielded before and after Trump's trip to China, I show that the ability of trade messaging to cross party lines has weakened and that Trump's followers strongly react to information cues from Trump but fail to react to information based accusations of flip flopping on his most prominent trade related promise: increased protection against China. The ability of politicians to shape preferences rather than respond to the will of constituents calls into question the electoral connection on critical government policies even when they become salient. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Trump administration has reversed a 70-year consensus and transformed both the substance of trade policy and the postwar role the US has played in its global management. It has also reconfigured the role of the president in the domestic trade policy process. Armed with the power and influence the US amassed during its long run as leader of the post-war liberal world economy, the Trump administration has used trade as its principle coercive weapon in foreign policy. It has achieved some success, albeit at high diplomatic cost and by putting at risk America's long-standing structural advantages in the world economy. Given that domestic discontent with the liberal world economy has increased significantly, it is likely that the core aspects of Trump's trade revolution will endure, even if subsequent administrations soften Trump's provocative execution of it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents information on the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the history of economic relations between Mexico and the United States. Details are given outlining the political events and movements immediately surrounding the establishment of NAFTA in 1994, highlighting both its challenges and accomplishments. Further discussion is given overviewing similar trends in U.S.-Mexican relations since the 1820s, especially in the agricultural sector. Commentary is particularly given regarding the indistinct nature of the cultural and economic border between the two nations. Suggestions are offered asserting that while economic progress has been made as a result of NAFTA, multiple historical trends of setbacks still exist.