The United States faces a formidable and growing economic challenge from Japan. Over the last decade, the American state has characteristically responded to the loss of domestic market dominance in the manufacturing sector to foreign firms by invoking the principles of free and fair trade in...

Faced with a formidable competitiveness problem, the American government chief executive appeared to offer a series of ad hoc responses in the 1980s. Contrarily, this article suggests that executive responses to foreign economic challenges follow a predictable pattern. Pointing to the...