ABSTRACT
United States international trade policy was transformed between 1960 and 1990. In the early 1960s, the agenda of US trade policy, with a couple of notable sectoral exceptions, turned upon liberal-internationalist principles. Policy focused on lowering tariffs through the multilateral negotiating forum of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. This chapter begins by setting aside the tenuous claims of pluralism, statism, and neorealism. Pluralism treats business interests as if they were not significantly more powerful and influential than other interests. Statism, also known as institutionalism, insists that government institutions and the policy process are autonomous from business interests. Neo-Gramscian historical materialism explains US hegemony in the post-World War II international system by applying two of Antonio Gramsci's contributions to Marxist theory. According to product-cycle theory, the evolution of trade dependence, import penetration, and multinationality is largely a function of the age of products and the diffusion of knowledge of the processes that produce them.
