Clashing Over Commerce: A History of US Trade Policy (Markets and Governments in Economic History)

by Douglas A. Irwin

Thus, the immediate postwar period was an enormously eventful one for US trade policy. The main objective of policy had shifted decisively from restriction to reciprocity. A bipartisan consensus had emerged to support efforts to take gradual steps to free world trade from government-imposed trade barriers. The domestic debate was less about whether tariffs should be reduced in concert with other countries, but about the particular ways of helping a few import-competing industries cope with foreign competition. Furthermore, the US-led efforts to reduce trade restrictions around the world had borne fruit. Although the ITO had failed, the GATT largely established non-discrimination and unconditional MFN as benchmarks for trade policy among a core set of countries. The GATT signaled that the developed countries were not going to revert to interwar protectionism but would instead promote the expansion of world trade in the years to come.