Analysts of the determinants of US trade policy have emphasized ideology, interest group competition, executive-congressional interaction, and cold war rivalry as explanations for US policy. This chapter argues that the development of a business conflict model of US trade policy sensitive to the interaction between global macroeconomic conditions and corporate power in establishing the parameters of US trade policy. Since the mid-1970s, the collapse of the Bretton Woods system has been accompanied by increased divisions among business internationalists previously committed to multilateralism. The trend of relocating partial production of a product to the less-developed world for re-export to the home market has been occurring to various degrees since the early-to-mid-1960s. US auto and electronics firms faced vigorous competition from their Japanese counterparts in the 1980s, which provided the major impetus for industrial restructuring. The US automobile industry has developed a corporate production strategy that seeks to combat the effects of increased global competition.
