ABSTRACT
Any explanation for the trade policies of nations must begin from the premise that each seeks to fashion a policy that will achieve its interests. It is the thesis of this chapter, however, that such interests are extraordinarily difficult to identify, even for the parties themselves. Trade produces such a welter of consequences through so many dynamic and complex causal processes that preferences for trade policy are dominated by the relatively simple theoretical ideas used to interpret, calculate, and weigh the various interests of participants. Further, because these theoretical ideas are highly structured, the actual menu of choices available to policy advocates is relatively small and surprisingly universal. Consequently, the center of the trade policy debate has seldom strayed far from the basic division between the orthodox liberal trade theory which underlies strategies of (more or less) free trade and assorted ideas associated with mercantilist thought that inform strategies of managed trade. The choice can be illustrated with a comparison of the trade policy decisions of two of the leading actors in the contemporary global political economy, Japan and the United States.
