Future Visions For U S Trade Policy

Four experts provide contrasting points of view and different solutions as the administration attempts to fashion a U.S. trade strategy for the 21st century.

Considers Kennedy Round GATT negotiations impact on trade barriers and tariffs, especially between U.S. and the European Economic Community, the European Free Trade Association, and Japan.

In trade policy, as in many other areas of public policy, decision makers often confront present and future problems with little understanding of how similar disputes were resolved in the past. Too often, busy public officials had no time to write or record negotiating histories. Revisiting U.S. Trade Policy, which is certain to become a classic in the literature of trade negotiations, is just such a record. Built on the oral histories of thirty-five former U.S. trade policymakers -- including Michael Blumenthal, Alonzo McDonald, William Roth, and Robert S. Strauss -- this unique record, prepared for publication by Alfred E. Eckes, revisits some of the most important moments of America's trade liberalization program in the years after World War II. From GATT to the World Trade Organization, these major players look back in candid hindsight at their decisions concerning trade policy and the effects that those decisions had on shaping the new international economic order.

From American master Ward Just, returning to his trademark territory of "Forgetfulness "and "The Weather in Berlin," an evocative portrait of diplomacy and desire set against the backdrop of America's first lost war

"Though threats to American security have changed dramatically in the last decade, U.S. defense policy and military forces look a lot like they did during the closing days of the Cold War - only smaller. Are the policies and the forces about right to deal with a wide range of threats and uncertaintiesfrom resurgent big powers to civil/ethnic wars to Persian Gulf-like wars to terrorism and weapons of mass destruction - or should they be redesigned before it's too late? That question drives this book." "Council on Foreign Relations staff, joined by a wide range of other experts, offer four choices: First, meet present threats seriously, that is, by building up forces with a 10 percent spending increase; second, anticipate breakthroughs in military technology by possible future adversaries and concentrate now on U.S. technological superiority at about present spending levels: third, focus more on low-level but serious threats from terrorists and civil/ethnic wars and answer with greater reliance on our allies and international organizations, like NATO or the United Nations, and cut expenditures by 15 to 20 percent; or fourth, maintain present capabilities and hold spending at about $250 billion yearly." "The book presents these choices as "Presidential" speeches, so that they can be read and understood by interested Americans."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

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