ABSTRACT
Working with George H. W. Bush and the new special trade representative (STR), who had been the Deputy STR for two years in the Carter Administration, Baker took the initiative on two major issues that later came to fruition in the 1990s. He first focused on a new round of General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs negotiations that would strengthen legal mandates and sanctions, but with the understanding that the negotiations also might lead to an agreement for a World Trade Organization, backed by government sanctions. Second, he engaged the United States in bilateral negotiations with Canada, which came to fruition in a free-trade agreement in 1987. Three years later, after Bush had been elected president in 1988, and with Baker serving as his Secretary of State, the trade pact with Canada unexpectedly led to the tripartite negotiations among the United States, Mexico, and Canada that eventually created the North American Free Trade Agreement.
