Dilemmas of a trading nation : the United States and Japan in the evolving Trans-Pacific order / Mireya Solis.

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

The balancing of competing interests and goals will have momentous consequences for Japan--and the United States--in their quest for economic growth, social harmony, and international clout.

Japan and the United States face difficult choices in charting their paths ahead as trading nations. Tokyo has long aimed for greater decisiveness, which would allow it to move away from a fragmented policymaking system favoring the status quo in order to enable meaningful internal reforms and acquire a larger voice in trade negotiations. And Washington confronts an uphill battle in rebuilding a fraying domestic consensus in favor of internationalism essential to sustain its leadership role as a champion of free trade.

In Dilemmas of a Trading Nation , Mireya Solís describes how accomplishing these tasks will require the skillful navigation of vexing tradeoffs that emerge from pursuing desirable, but to some extent contradictory goals: economic competitiveness, social legitimacy, and political viability.

Trade policy has catapulted front and center to the national conversations taking place in each country about their desired future direction--economic renewal, a relaunched social compact, and projected international influence. Dilemmas of a Trading Nation underscores the global consequences of these defining trade dilemmas for Japan and the United States: decisiveness, reform, internationalism. At stake is the ability of these leading economies to upgrade international economic rules and create incentives for emerging economies to converge toward these higher standards. At play is the reaffirmation of a rules-based international order that has been a source of postwar stability, the deepening of a bilateral alliance at the core of America's diplomacy in Asia, and the ability to reassure friends and rivals of the staying power of the United States. In the execution of trade policy today, we are witnessing an international leadership test dominated by domestic governance dilemmas.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

CHOICE Review

Solis (Brookings) examines the domestic politics of Japanese trade policy and illuminates the numerous conflicts that often arise in the context of competing economic, social, and political goals. She offers a new perspective on the complicated, multifaceted trade-offs required to implement effective multilateral trade agreements in the age of globalization. In fact, since the fall of the Berlin Wall the global economy has experienced a deepening interdependence characterized by the absence of a great power war, the spread of democracy, and a relative decline in the levels of poverty and conflict. While much of this now is at risk due to the unraveling of the Middle East, security threats in Europe, and expanding great power rivalries in Asia, the situation is exacerbated considerably by the inability of the US to successfully negotiate mega-multilateral trade agreements like the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Even more problematic, however, is the fact that under the current international trade system the rules cannot be updated to match the reality of global economic production. Solis argues solidly against the current practice of permitting trade policy to be overwhelmed and held hostage by domestic politics. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty. --Sophia Crysler Hart, College of William and Mary