S. US Trade Policy

In this highly politicized era, trade policy has taken center stage as one of the most contentious issues on the national and international landscape. The seminar will seek to equip students to assess (1) the ways in which the Constitution and laws and the United States, and the history of U.S. trade policy, have contributed to the current legal, policy and political landscape, and (2) what the legal framework history of U.S. trade policy indicates about the future direction of U.S. trade policy. The course will focus on a matrix of three elements. The first element is the U.S. legal framework established under the United States Constitution and U.S. law that creates the modern legal and conceptual parameters for the ways in which the United States engages with foreign countries and international institutions in economic and commercial matters. The second element is the history of U.S. trade law, policy and politics, with a particular focus on five distinct historical eras since 1789, and the hinge/pivot points between each of those eras. The third element is the relationship between the United States and foreign countries and the international legal framework that the United States has been largely responsible for establishing ― and under which commercial relations among nations, including the United States, are currently conducted. The course will use these three elements as guideposts to explore the ways in which each element ― and the dynamic among them ― have contributed to current U.S. trade law and policy. In particular, the course will identify the ways in which the United States has created and currently creates and executes trade law and policy, the impact of the U.S. legal structure on those policies, and the impact of U.S. law and policy on international rules and trading partners, including on the next era of global rules of commercial conduct.