Domestic constraints to the United States trade policy during the Clinton administration (1993-2000)

• Grant number: 14/07558-0
• Support type: Scholarships in Brazil - Master
• Effective date (Start): August 01, 2014
• Effective date (End): February 28, 2015
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Political Science - International Politics
• Principal Investigator: Carlos Eduardo Ferreira de Carvalho
• Grantee: Rodrigo Fagundes Cézar
• Home Institution: Pró-Reitoria de Pós-Graduação (PRPG). Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo (PUC-SP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

This research aims to analyze the domestic constraints to the adoption of policies of trade liberalization by the United States during the Clinton Administration and the initiatives of the President and the United States Trade Representative (USTR) to bargain and mobilize coalitions in order to adjust to those obstacles. The United States trade policy during the Clinton Administration was marked by difficulties in attaining trade liberalization especially since the moment when the Republicans obtained majority in Congress. The literature that analyzes the period has gaps, mainly regarding the Executive role in the process of domestic bargain. This research carries out an analytic narrative with emphasis on three cases: NAFTA (1993), the failure of renewing the fast-track authority (1997), and the approval of US permanent normal trade relations with China (1999). The intention is to explore the domestic preferences of societal and governmental actors and employ a theoretical framework that relies on the foreign policy analysis and international political economy literature to analyze the process of domestic bargaining. The expected result is to have a better comprehension of the sources related to the difficulty to approve trade policy in the US during the nineties and contribute to the understanding of the process of bargain and domestic negotiation that is the mainstay of contemporary International Relations theory.