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

by Douglas A. Irwin

In January 1918, President Wilson delivered his famous “Fourteen Points” address before a joint session of Congress. Wilson set out his vision of how the United States could help establish a new postwar world based on national self-determination and international cooperation, bringing secret diplomacy to an end and making World War I “the war to end all wars.” The centerpiece of his proposal was the creation of a League of Nations that would guarantee political independence and territorial integrity, thereby preventing future military conflicts. Wilson’s second and third points related to trade policy. The second called for absolute freedom of navigation on the seas. The third proposed “the removal, so far as possible, of all economic barriers and the establishment of an equality of trade conditions among all the nations consenting to the peace and associating themselves for its maintenance.”39 In effect, Wilson was calling for international cooperation to reduce trade barriers and ensure that non-discrimination was the basis for commercial relations around the world.