America's Trade Policy
Towards Japan
Demanding Results
John Kunkel
In a few years, the United States has gone from worrying about Japan's economic might to
worrying about its meltdown. The rise and fall of America's 'results-oriented' trade
policy towards Japan captures this turnaround.
John Kunkel traces this Japan policy to a crisis in the institutions, laws and norms of
the US trade policy regime in the first half of the 1980s. This arose from the erosion of
America's post-war international economic dominance (especially vis-a-vis Japan) and the
unintended consequences of Reaganomics. The crisis in turn led to the progressive
ascendancy of a coalition of 'hardliners' over 'free traders' after 1985.
Kunkel combines research in economics, politics and history - including interviews with
key policy-makers - to illuminate this important case study of American trade policy. His
book offers theoretical insights and practical lessons on the forces shaping US trade
policy at the start of the twenty-first century.
Contents:
1. Introduction
2. Explaing US Trade Policy: A State-Society Approach
3. An American Trade Policy Regime Crisis
4. Hardliners Versus Free Traders
5. The Semiconductor Agreement: A Hardline Landmark
6. Reagan, Bush and Selective Demands for Results
7. The Hardliners Advance
8. Free Traders and Japan's 'Structural Impediments
9. The Revisionist Moment with a Hardliners-in-Chief
10. The Eclipse of the Japan Problem
Author Biography:
John Kunkel is an international trade consultant currently based in Rome. He has worked as
an advisor on trade policy to the Australian government and as a consultant to the OECD.
162 pages
