culture, Treasury, Commerce, and otherrndepartments to coordinate the countrv’srntrade strategy and negotiations—thernCommittee on Trade Agreementsrn(CTA). For more than two decades, thernnames of these members were a tightlyrnheld secret. Eckes, who has seen the list,rnreveals that most of them, like many appointeesrnof the New Deal, were freetraderneconomic theorists recruited fromrnacademe. During the Roosevelt administration,rnthey were turned loose to playrnwith their economic theories.rnHere Eckes hits his stride. Accordingrnto one of the internal CTA memos herncites, the “primarv objective” of the ReciprocalrnTrade Agreements Program wasrnto “reduce trade barriers rather thanrndrive a sharp bargain . . . and permit arngreater increase in imports than in exportsrnwith a view to correcting the tradernbalance problem of the United States.”rnhi short, the United States was willing torngive more than it gave in trade negotiations.rnThe goal was to increase importsrnand reduce its trade surplus with otherrnnations. In one negotiation after anotherrnthe State Department, largclv unsupervisedrnin its trade negotiations, madernmaximum concessions to other nationsrnwhile getting minimum concessions inrnreturn. Equally significant, in the mid-rn1930’s, the State Department extendedrntrade concessions to all of its major tradernpartners, except Germany, despite thatrncountry’s flagrant discrimination againstrnAmerican exports. Not surprisingly, thernState Department in the same periodrnsoon began to use trade as an instrumentrnof foreign policy. Eckes documentsrntrade concessions made to Belgium,rnSwitzerland, Britain, Canada, Turkey,rnFor Immediate ServicernCHRONICLESrnNEW SUBSCRIBERSrnTOLL FREE NUMBERrn1-800-877-5459rnArgentina, and Venezuela, amongrndozens of other nations. The goal was tornbuy goodwill, even though each concessionrndamaged some domestic Americanrnindustry.rnHull retired in 1944, but his policiesrncontinued in the postwar period. The resultrnof the Reciprocal Trade Acts, Eckesrnexplains, was to transform the UnitedrnStates in less than 30 years from “an impregnablerncommercial fortress” into “thernworld’s largest and most inviting targetrnof commercial opportunity for foreignrnproducers.”rnIn the post-World War II era, unbalancedrnconcessions have been thernnorm in American trade negotiations.rnEckes uses unpublished papers from thernTruman Presidential Library to describernthe first negotiations of the GeneralrnAgreement on Tariffs and Trade in 1947.rnHe describes how the United Statesrnwanted an agreement, regardless of howrn”thin” it might be. This is a less-thandesirablcrnnegotiating position. By contrast,rnBritain wanted American concessionsrnfor its textile and manufacturingrnindustries, and also retention of its imperialrnpreference system. The result wasrnthat Britain got its concessions, kept thernpreference system, and the United Statesrngot a thin agreement. This pact establishedrnboth a pattern and an expectationrnof concessions from the llnited States inrnfuture trade agreements. In essence,rntrade became aid.rnBy the I950’s, the State Departmentrnhad negotiated dozens of pacts. Yet, asrnEckes documents, none was being monitoredrnor enforced. He describes how inrn1958 the Chamber of Commerce askedrnthe State Department for an accountingrnof which countries had given concessionsrnfor American exports and which productsrnwere eligible, as well as the tariffrnlevels for those exports. The State Departmentrncould not supply an answer,rnfor they had not kept a list, let alonernmonitored the agreements thev had negotiated.rnIn its negotiations with Japan duringrnthis period, Eckes describes how thernState Department went an extra step.rnUsing minutes from numerous negotiations,rnhe reveals how the State Departmentrnprovided several third-party nationsrnwith concessions in the Americanrnmarket in exchange for their acceptancernof Japanese exports. Foreign policy, ofrncourse, was the reason. Eckes documentsrndozens of additional examples ofrndomestic industries being sacrificed forrnforeign policy objectives.rnMore than a third of Opening America’srnMarket describes American tradernpolicy making from 1960 until the present.rnIt is a sad tale. The economist-advisorsrninvariably seem to have been freerntrade ideologues with little experiencernoutside the classroom. Invariably, thernnegotiators are politicians with littlernknowledge or experience in trade matters.rnMost become foreign lobbyistsrnwhen they leave office. Agreements gornunenforced, and when there was a surgernof enforcement in the late 1980’s,rnforeign interests successfully lobbiedrnCongress to weaken American tradernlaws. Foreign producers have taken aggressivernadvantage of the situation. Sornhave many domestic firms that havernfound the cheap labor and lax regulationsrnof other nations too attractive to resist.rnThe result is a hollowing out ofrnAmerica’s manufacturing base, and a declinernof American wages and living standards.rnOne measure of this is that inrn1970 only 10 percent of the manufacturedrngoods consumed in the UnitedrnStates were imports. Today, 50 percentrnare. Another measure is the fact that inrn1970 almost 24 percent of the Americanrnlabor force was employed in manufacturing,rnbut today less than 14 percent is.rnViewed yet another way, virtually all ofrnthe 44 million net new American jobsrncreated since 1970 were in industries immunernto international competition, suchrnas health care. Yet, most of the Americanrnjobs lost during this same period,rnsuch as those making capital goods, werernsubject to international competition.rnThe favored solution—or at least thatrnapproved by America’s opinion and politicalrnelite—to this decline is for thernUnited States to enter into still more freerntrade agreements. Thus, the UnitedrnStates became a member of NAFTA inrn1993 and the Worid Trade Organizationrnin 1994. Meanwhile, President Clintonrnhas proposed American membership inrnseveral additional regional trade blocksrn(including one with our Asian rivals), therninclusion of 23 Caribbean nations andrnChile into NAFTA, and perhaps a trans-rnAtlantic free trade pact with Europe.rnThe discordant note in all these plans isrnthat no politician or economist has yet tornoffer an alternative as lucid and compellingrnas that provided in the 1930’s byrnCordell Hull. Pulling that sword fromrnthe stone is one of the central economicrnchallenges of our time. crn32/CHRONICLESrnrnrn