Over the past two decades, the United States has increasingly balanced its prime commitment to the multilateral trading system and the GATT/WTO with supplemental negotiations for regional trade agreements and bilateral agreements with nations around the entire trading world. Under the George W. Bush administration, this multidimensional approach—“competitive liberalization,” as it was labeled by former U.S. trade representative Robert Zoellick—was formally adopted as the central focus of U.S. trade policy. In addition, China’s increasing influence and power in East Asia, the key region for economic growth, have presented major new challenges to U.S. national interests, foreign economic policy, and security policy.

At this AEI conference, Claude Barfield will address these and other developments in U.S. trade policy in a presentation of a chapter from his forthcoming book, The Eagle and the Dragon: The U.S., China, and the Rise of Asian Regionalism (AEI Press, 2007), coauthored with Andrei Zlate. Anne Krueger of the International Monetary Fund and Bernard K. Gordon of University of New Hampshire will discuss Barfield’s presentation.