ABSTRACT
Early in its incumbency, the Howard government discovered the persuasiveness of domestic stakeholders in US trade policy. Australia’s early attempts at threat mediation to sway US trade decisions through its personal and cultural attachments to the US were smartly rejected. As both the Howe leather and lamb tariff disputes revealed, the US domestic automotive and rural producers utilising US trade law, together with their Congressional representatives, were decisive in prevailing upon the Administration’s decision-making. Australia’s calls to the Clinton Administration to salvage a better outcome for both its rural producer and urban worker constituencies mattered little when confronted with such powerful US domestic interests.
