Trade Threats, Trade Wars: Bargaining, Retaliation, and American
Coercive Diplomacy. By Ka Zeng. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan
Press, 2004. 324p. $57.50.
This book examines bilateral U.S. trade diplomacy during the 1980s
and early 1990s. Ka Zeng advances (and generally sustains) an important
thesis: that in trade disputes, U.S. policy has been tougher and more
effective toward advanced industrial democracies (Europe, Japan) than
nondemocratic nations (esp. China). The reason, she argues, lies in the
structure of the economic relationships. Trade between the United
States and the democracies is largely “competitive,” with
industries and sectors going head-to-head for markets. The trade
pattern with autocracies (and less-advanced economies like India and
Brazil) is more “complementary,” with imports from these
countries largely in product areas U.S. producers have abandoned.