Trade Policy of the Reagan Years

Abstract

In spite of an ideological stance that should have favored free trade, the trade policies of the Reagan years were a mixture of both free trade and protection that were not all that different from those of preceding administrations. This paper examines the record of the Reagan period in terms of the volume of trade itself, the levels of tariffs and nontariff barriers, and the filings of actions under U.S. trade law. All of these indicators present the same mixed message: that the Reagan administration was neither the bastion of free trade that some had hoped for, nor the bastion of protection that others have claimed it turned out to be. the greatest damage to the system of liberal trade during the Reagan years may have come, not from trade policies directly, but indirectly from the macroeconomic policies that buffeted trading industries through an unprecedented aggregate trade deficit and swings of exchange rates.