PSCI 3325 Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: General Agreement On Tariffs And Trade, Comparative Advantage, North American Free Trade Agreement
25 Jan 2017
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Background: economics and politics: mercantilism - more exports than imports, increasing price of gold. But this is not how you increase wealth. Allow trade as freely as possible, fewest barriers, specialize in how they do best. Trade and get the things you are not as good as. Democrats then said they wanted fair-trade over free-trade. Minimize the harms of the us on the losing end. Tariffs revenues were huge before income tax revenues: tariffs set by legislation: 1789-1933. Significant factor in causing the great depression, stock market. Gave the secretary of state to negotiate tariffs with other states. Treaties would be subject to up or down votes by the congress with no amendments, no logrolls. Post wwii - trade organization was not agreed to. Next 50 years, series of multilateral treaties (gatt) Negotiated multiple times, a bunch of countries. Whoever signed the agreement got the same terms as everyone else. More countries joined and more issues arose.
