ABSTRACT
This chapter studies the approach taken by the United States in the APEC Early Voluntary Sectoral Liberalization (EVSL) initiative in relation to its domestic politics. The trade policy of the US government is generally speaking strongly influenced by domestic politics. But the US government adopted a consistently positive stance in the EVSL initiative and therefore took a hardline posture against the negative position of Japan (specifically the refusal to liberalize in regard to forest products and fish and fish products). The biggest reason for the failure of the EVSL initiative was this discord between the United States and Japan. How did this external stance of the United States tie in with the domestic politics unfolding behind the negotiators? What kind of causal relationship was there with the failure of the EVSL initiative?
