ABSTRACT
The first half of the 1980s was marked by a crisis in the institutions, laws and norms that had oriented US trade policy since 1934 – a crisis in the 1934 regime. The US trade deficit ballooned, a sharp rise in US protection threatened to undermine fifty years of trade liberalisation, Congress took on a more activist policy role, and America’s post-war commitment to process-oriented multilateralism in its trade relations was significantly weakened. Explaining the evolution of US market access policy towards Japan requires an understanding of this broader crisis in the American trade policy regime.
