ABSTRACT
President Reagan developed his own version of the comprehensive bargaining approach and flirted with a hardline policy of economic warfare. Responding to Soviet involvement in the Polish crisis, particularly, the Reagan administration directed a series of sanctions at both the Soviet Union and Poland. The allies remain reluctant to join the US strategy of economic diplomacy, however, and were opposed to the idea of economic warfare. The assumptions, logic, and policy of the selective bargainers share many similarities with the more comprehensive position, but they also display some important differences. The Nixon administration reflected many of the characteristics of selective bargaining. There is a body of opinion, concentrated in the business community but found elsewhere as well, that supports a resumption and expansion of US-Soviet trade and opposed the use of trade as a bargaining tool. The pro-traders cite the West European and Japanese examples and argue that the US, like its competitors, ought to decouple trade and politics.
