Thomas W. Zeiler

Free Trade, Free World: The Advent of GATT

In this era of globalization, it is easy to forget that todays free market values were not always predominant. But as this history of the birth of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) shows, the principles and practices underlying our current international economy once represented contested ground between U.S. policymakers, Congress, and Americas closest allies. Drawing on historical and theoretical work in a variety of fields and tapping archives in the United States, Britain, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, Thomas Zeiler weaves a complex story of diplomacy, negotiation, and politics that uncovers the roots of our current economic ideology.

A night at Delmonico's: The Spalding baseball tour and the imagination of Empire

This article casts the Spalding world baseball tour of 1888–1889 in a context of the campaign to construct a national identity during the late 19th century. In doing so, it intends to show how baseball magnate Albert Spalding and fellow sporting missionaries used cultural perspectives promoted on the tour to assert baseballs national purpose and, through the sport, stake Americas claim in the Anglo-Saxon imperium of the times. Spalding initiated the mission with a remarkable tourist venture that spanned the globe, from Chicago across the Pacific and through Europe before returning from overseas. In New York, at a famous reception at Delmonicos restaurant, the tourists and commentators imbued the sport with the rhetoric of nationalism so critical to constructing empire ten years later. The banquet serves as the window in which to look on parts of the tour, particularly the contrasting results of the visits to Australia and Britain.

Cautious visionary : Cordell Hull and trade reform, 1933-1937

Cordell Hulls persistence and legislative experience were determining factors in the development of the Trade Agreements Act, 1934. This text investigates the political struggles surrounding the passage and implementation of the Act, and its impact on Roosevelts first administration.

American Trade Policy, 1923-1995.

Preface Background to the Hawley-Smoot Tariff The Hawley-Smoot Tariff The Building of a Liberal Trade Policy The Trade Expansion Act and the Kennedy Round The Trade Reform Act and the Tokyo Round Fair Trade and the Uruguay Round The North American Free Trade Agreement A Return to Unilateralism Bibliography Index

Kennedy, Oil Imports, and the Fair Trade Doctrine

In his efforts to secure passage of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, John F. Kennedy had to placate not only oil and coal interests at home, but also traditional trade partners like Venezuela abroad, and he also had to foster the broad national security aim of retaining domestic oil reserves. This article argues that Kennedy was able to utilize a fair trade doctrine to gain enactment of legislation that would both lower trade barriers and assist domestic producers hurt by increased imports.

Guide to U.S. Economic Policy

Guide to U.S. Economic Policy shows students and researchers how issues and actions are translated into public policies for resolving economic problems (like the Great Recession) or managing economic conflict (like the left-right ideological split over the role of government regulation in markets). Taking an interdisciplinary approach, the guide highlights decision-making cycles requiring the cooperation of government, business, and an informed citizenry to achieve a comprehensive approach to a successful, growth-oriented economic policy. Through 30 topical, operational, and relational essays, the book addresses the development of U.S. economic policies from the colonial period to today; the federal agencies and public and private organizations that influence and administer economic policies; the challenges of balancing economic development with environmental and social goals; and the role of the U.S. in international organizations such as the IMF and WTO. Key Features: *30 essays by experts in the field investigate the fundamental economic, political, social, and process initiatives that drive policy decisions affecting the nations economic stability and success. * Essential themes traced throughout the chapters include scarcity, wealth creation, theories of economic growth and macroeconomic management, controlling inflation and unemployment, poverty, the role of government agencies and regulations to police markets, Congress vs. the president, investment policies, economic indicators, the balance of trade, and the immediate and long-term costs associated with economic policy alternatives. * A glossary of key economic terms and events, a summary of bureaus and agencies charged with economic policy decisions, a master bibliography, and a thorough index appear at the back of the book. This must-have reference for students and researchers is suitable for academic, public, high school, government, and professional libraries.

Basepaths to Empire: Race and the Spalding World Baseball Tour

During the Gilded Age, transnational American agents carried national values abroad, including defense of the “civilizing mission” of the white race toward people of color. This article explores race within the context of the Spalding world baseball tour of 1888-89, a transnational enterprise that marketed the national pastime abroad and, in so doing, indicated the latent, private power behind the official policies of the United States. A rather unusual segment of society to be considered for such scholarly treatment, professional baseball elites nonetheless helped generate a racist imperial ideology and thus added to the voices that set racial parameters for the American empire when it was attained in 1898. By tracing the racial attitudes of the baseball tourists, this article contributes to recent scholarly enterprises that examine foreign relations from a cultural perspective and integrate overlooked actors into the study of diplomatic history.

Nixon’s War with the International Economy

‘The P said…The country needs a purpose. Maybe we have to demagogue it. We’ve been program-oriented, now we need to be purpose-oriented.’1 So recorded Chief of Staff H. R. Haldeman in his diary entry of 23 July 1971, regarding a White House conversation with (the ‘P’) President Richard Nixon about challenges facing the United States and the world in maintaining peace and prosperity. The statement indicates Nixon’s overall approach to the international economy in a crucial period, just three weeks before the second ‘Nixon Shock’ (the first being the opening to China) that rocked the international economy and political structure. As a result, the administration gutted the Bretton Woods dollars-for-gold exchange system that had existed for decades and imposed a temporary 10 per cent surcharge on imports. In this private moment, the president determined to do something about the American trade and payments imbalance that imperilled USA commitments abroad and hurt the domestic economy (and his political standing at home before the 1972 election campaign), but not go too far down the road of protectionism and beggar-thy-neighbour policies that could upset allies and undermine America’s record of liberal trade leadership. It was a tricky balancing act, one that included quite frank and brutal words and actions towards friends abroad. It was aggressively unilateral and motivated by domestic politics, and certainly a blow to the ethic of multilateralism, at first glance.

Commanding the Middle: The American Agenda at the Kennedy Round

The Kennedy Round of GATT was an opportunity for Australia and New Zealand to achieve their commercial interests of expanding agricultural exports and adjusting trade flows to the power of the United States, the loss of preferential markets in Britain and the new presence of the European Common Market. Both found commonalities with America, both managed to assert some of their concerns, but both also were decidedly junior and weaker partners to the free-trading United States in the GATT regime. The issues explored in this article range from trade in commodities to the protests of the Third World.

Against the Tide: An Intellectual History of Free Trade

List of IllustrationsAcknowledgmentsIntroduction3Ch. 1Early Foreign Trade Doctrines11Ch. 2The English Mercantilist Literature26Ch. 3The Emergence of Free Trade Thought45Ch. 4Physiocracy and Moral Philosophy64Ch. 5Adam Smiths Case for Free Trade75Ch. 6Free Trade in Classical Economics87Ch. 7Torrens and the Terms of Trade Argument101Ch. 8Mill and the Infant Industry Argument116Ch. 9Graham and the Increasing Returns Argument138Ch. 10Manoilescu and the Wage Differential Argument153Ch. 11The Australian Case for Protection172Ch. 12The Welfare Economics of Free Trade180Ch. 13Keynes and the Macroeconomics of Protection189Ch. 14Strategic Trade Policy207Conclusion: The Past and Future of Free Trade217References231Index253