ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that trade positions of firms can only be studied by enriching the dependent variable to include strategic demands as well as the standard poles of protectionism and free trade. As industries have become increasingly global and government intervention more pervasive, corporate trade demands have moved away from the standard poles of free trade and protectionism toward a more complex response, which people have called strategic trade policy. The machine tool industry did not respond to foreign competition by turning to strategic trade policy. The semiconductor industry was the only one to file government petitions, formally asking for retaliation in the absence of foreign market openness. Perhaps the most notable feature of the commercial aircraft industry was that it could take five years to get a plane from the drawing board to final production, and there was no guarantee of market success.
