Walking Out
Walking Out
America’s New Trade Policy in the Asia-Pacific and Beyond
Watch: APARC Book Launch Event
October 17, 2024
About the Book
From tariff wars to torn-up trade agreements, Michael Beeman explores America's recent and dramatic turn away from support for freer, rules-based trade to instead go its own new way. Focusing on America's trade engagements in the Asia-Pacific, he contrasts the trade policy choices made by America's leaders over several generations with those of today–decisions that are now undermining the trading system America created and triggering new tensions between America and its trading partners, allies and adversaries alike.
With keen insight as a former senior U.S. trade official, Beeman argues that America's exceptionally deep political divisions are driving its policy reversals, giving rise to a new trade policy characterized by zero-sum beliefs about the kind of trade America wants with the world and about new rules for trade that it wants for itself. With enormous implications for the future of regional and global trade, this timely analysis unravels the implications of America's seismic shift in approach for the future of the rules-based trading order and America's role in it.
Walking Out is essential reading for anyone interested in the domestic and international political economy of trade, international relations, and the future of America's role in the global economy.
About the Author
Michael L. Beeman is a visiting scholar at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center and has taught international policy as a lecturer at Stanford University. From 2017–23, he was the Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for Japan, Korea, and APEC at the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR), where he led negotiations for the U.S.-Japan Trade Agreement and for the updated U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement, among other initiatives. Prior to this, he served for over a decade in other positions at USTR, including as Deputy Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for Japan. He holds a DPhil in politics (University of Oxford) and an MA in international relations (Johns Hopkins University).
"In Walking Out, Beeman discusses how the two administrations have bucked traditional U.S. trade policy in myriad ways. This shift in policy has undermined the international trading system and stoked trade tensions between the U.S., its allies and adversaries, he contends." —Jason Asenso
Read the complete article at Inside U.S. Trade's "World Trade Online" (paywall) >
"Politics is pushing the U.S. toward increasingly 'retrograde' trade policies, former Assistant U.S. Trade Representative Michael Beeman tells Inside U.S. Trade [...]
Beeman said he takes Trump’s tariff threat seriously — and contends it should not be seen simply as a negotiating tactic for the U.S. to use to win more favorable trade arrangements, but as a complete rewrite of the U.S.’ post-WWII trade policy.
'I think the last time around when there was a Trump administration, there was a lot of coloring outside the lines, and the tearing out of a couple pages of the coloring book that had been in place since the end of World War II,' he said. 'But I think what they're talking about now is kind of a different coloring book, and I think it is pretty serious.'" —Jason Asenso
Read the complete interview at Inside U.S. Trade's "World Trade Online" (paywall) >
"Michael Beeman, former assistant U.S. trade representative for Japan, Korea and Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, says a Donald Trump presidency risks accelerating a shift away from the United States’ decades-old free trade consensus.
But he added that Harris is just as unlikely to restore U.S. trade engagement with the Asia-Pacific and developing countries and suspects she won’t resume Trump-era negotiations with the United Kingdom and Japan." —Ari Hawkins
In the Media
On Korea-U.S. Economic Cooperation in the Era of Walking Out
Yonhap News, November 20, 2024 (featured)
Trump Administration to "Reset Relations on the Assumption of Tariffs," Former USTR Official Says
Nikkei, November 15, 2024 (interview)
English version/ Japanese version
If Trump Is Re-elected, It Will be Impossible to Avoid Re-revision of the Korea-US FTA
JoongAng, October 31, 2024 (interview)
Can Democrats Win Back Voters from Trump on Trade Policy?
The New York Times, October 30, 2024 (quoted)
Multimedia from Book-Related Talks
US-South Korea Economic Cooperation in the Era of Walking Out
Korea Economic Institute, November 19, 2024
Watch >
Book Talk: Walking Out
Wilson Center, October 28, 2024
Watch >