The Evolution of the Trade Regime offers a comprehensive political-economic history of the development of the world's multilateral trade institutions, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and its successor, the World Trade Organization (WTO). While other books confine themselves to describing contemporary GATT/WTO legal rules or analyzing their economic logic, this is the first to explain the logic and development behind these rules. The book begins by examining the institutions' rules, principles, practices, and norms from their genesis in the early postwar period to the present. It evaluates the extent to which changes in these institutional attributes have helped maintain or rebuild domestic constituencies for open markets. The book considers these questions by looking at the political, legal, and economic foundations of the trade regime from many angles. The authors conclude that throughout most of GATT/WTO history, power politics fundamentally shaped the creation and evolution of the GATT/WTO system. Yet in recent years, many aspects of the trade regime have failed to keep pace with shifts in underlying material interests and ideas, and the challenges presented by expanding membership and preferential trade agreements.

This book is useful for scholars and practitioners who did not follow the GATT/WTO negotiations and who desire to acquire a comprehensive background on the subject. Mordechai E. Kreinin, Journal of Economic Literature This comprehensive and accessible book examines the evolution of the multilateral trade regime in the ever-changing global economic environment, particularly during the WTO era and the ongoing Doha Round. Professor Das explores how the creation of the multilateral trade regime, or the GATT/WTO system, has been fraught with difficulties. He describes the ways, by means of various rounds of negotiations, the multilateral trade regime has constantly adjusted itself to the new realities of the global economy. One glance at the recent history indicates that the evolution of the multilateral trade regime was far from even-handed and steady. The GATT/WTO system was repeatedly pushed to the brink of utter and ignominious disaster. Yet, as the author illustrates, the participating economies persevered. Consequently, the fabric of multilateral trade regime is stronger, its foundation deeper and its framework wider now than it was a generation ago. Unlike the GATT era, membership of the present trade regime is close to universal. The author concludes that of the two phases, the latter has turned out to be the more arduous, intricate and complex phase of evolution. Students and scholars of economics, international trade, international political economy and international relations will find this study of great interest. The definitions and explanations of terminology and advanced concepts make the book accessible to those without an extensive economic background.

conclusion to the Doha Round of the World Trade Organization (WTO) is urgently needed to mitigate the developmental divide by increasing trade between the industrialized and developing worlds. --

Lovett (Tulane Law School), Eckes (a former commissioner of the U.S. International Commission during the Reagan and Bush I administrations), and Brinkman (international economics, Portland State U.) evaluate the evolution of U.S. trade policy, focusing on the period from the establishment of the Gen

Despite troubled trade negotiations, global trade—and trade policy—will thrive in the twenty-first century, but with a bow to the past. Is the multilateral trading order of the twentieth century a historical artifact? Was the creation of the World Trade Organization in 1995 the high point of multilateral cooperation on trade? This new volume, edited by Bernard M. Hoekman and Ernesto Zedillo, assesses the relevance of the WTO in the context of the rise of China and the United States' turn toward unilateral protectionism. The contributors adopt a historical perspective to discuss changes in global trade policy trends, adducing lessons from the past to help understand current trade tensions. Topics include responses to U.S. protectionism under the Trump administration, the policy dimensions of trade in services and the rise of the digital economy, how to strengthen the WTO to better negotiate new rules of the game and adjudicate disputes, managing China's integration into the global trade system, and the implications of global value chains for economic development policies. By reflecting on past episodes of protectionism and how they were resolved, Trade in the 21st Century provides both context and guidance on how trade challenges can be addressed in the coming decades.

The United States is entering a period of profound uncertainty in the world political economy--an uncertainty which is threatening the liberal economic order that its own statesmen created at the end of the Second World War. The storm surrounding this threat has been ignited by an issue that has divided Americans since the nation's founding: international trade. Is America better off under a liberal trade regime, or would protectionism be more beneficial? The issue divided Alexander Hamilton from Thomas Jefferson, the agrarian south from the industrializing north, and progressives from robber barons in the Gilded Age. In our own times, it has pitted anti-globalization activists and manufacturing workers against both multinational firms and the bulk of the economics profession. Ambassador C. Donald Johnson's The Wealth of a Nation is an authoritative history of the politics of trade in America from the Revolution to the Trump era. Johnson begins by charting the rise and fall of the U.S. protectionist system from the time of Alexander Hamilton to the Smoot-Hawley Tariff of 1930. Challenges to protectionist dominance were frequent and often serious, but the protectionist regime only faded in the wake of the Great Depression. After World War II, America was the primary architect of the liberal rules-based economic order that has dominated the globe for over half a century. Recent years, however, have seen a swelling anti-free trade movement that casts the postwar liberal regime as anti-worker, pro-capital, and--in Donald Trump's view--even anti-American. In this riveting history, Johnson emphasizes the benefits of the postwar free trade regime, but focuses in particular on how it has attempted to advance workers' rights. This analysis of the evolution of American trade policy stresses the critical importance of the multilateral trading system's survival and defines the central political struggle between business and labor in measuring the wealth of a nation.

Trade and regulation have been a theme and counteropint through much of recorded history, each advancing at times when the other receded. In the past, regulation was imposed by self-aggrandizing territorial units that sought to use trade for their own purposes. Today trade agreements between nations are a permanent factor in international commerce, and as a result the nature of regulation is changing. In this series of essays Gilbert R. Winham explores the nature of international trade and regulation as it is evolving today. He begins with a historical perspective, and then considers the various stresses to which the system of international trade is subject. He discusses the nature and function of the GATT and assesses its effectiveness. Next he turns his attention to the latest round of talks, which broke down abruptly in Brussels at the end of 1990, and concludes with a look forward to the future of the GATT specifically and international trade in general. Today as economic boundaries are merging, dividing, and reforming, international trade plays a critical role in global stability. Winham offers an insightful analysis of how the current situation has developed and where it might lead.