ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the partnership between the president and Congress for the conduct of US trade policy, how this partnership became strained during the 1960s, and how it was renegotiated with apparent success during the 1970s. The US Constitution established a federal government with three branches, a separation of powers, a system of checks and balances among those branches, and the president as the chief executive. Although the reduction of tariffs was the principal object, during the Kennedy Round of trade negotiations, certain participating governments undertook to negotiate nontariff barrier agreements. In particular, the United States agreed to eliminate the highly protective American Selling Price system of customs valuation applied to imports of certain commodities and agreed to adhere to an international antidumping code regulating the responses of governments to imports sold below fair value. At the end of the Kennedy Round, Congress reneged on the executive branch commitments and declined to repeal the American Selling Price system.
