Trade Incentives, Special Interest Group Influences and International Political Considerations.

When do states grant trade inducements to strategically important countries to secure their military-security cooperation? Are special interest groups able to influence trade policy-making when it is designed to achieve national security goals? Under what conditions international political considerations trump special interest group influences? These are some questions that remain largely unanswered in the international political economy literature. To help fill this gap in the literature, this study examines the degree to which international political relations and special interest groups shape US textile trade policy-making by examining the US-Turkey and US-Pakistan textile trade relations from January 2002 to March 2003. The study shows that although US officials wanted to use textiles as a carrot in the war on terrorism in the wake of September 11, their ability to offer textile trade incentives to encourage international political cooperation was limited by the US textile industry, which at the time was very influential because the US administration depended on the textile state representatives to pass the Trade Act of 2002. However, the study also demonstrates that international political considerations may trump domestic political influences when the US administration needs to gain the alliance of a country, whose military cooperation is presented by the US administration as an 'immediate' security necessity. The study concludes by recommending that both domestic and international influences should be taken into account when analyzing trade policy-making. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]