America's Trade Follies Turning Economic Leadership into Strategic Weakness

America is the powerhouse of the world economy, but will it continue to be in the era of globalisation? Today, foreign policy, trade and jobs are closely connected. 35 million American jobs depend just on exports - more than in Europe and Asia. The US has been a leader in opening up the world of trade, but now, Bernard K Gordon argues, it has taken the wrong turn that threatens to close down the world trading system itself. He warns that the danger is America's love affair with 'regionalism': if it isn't stopped, Asia will respond with its own 'regional bloc', and the world will be on the road to disaster... America's Trade Follies controversially challenges the myth of America's trade deficits and shows its consequences for current US trade policy. The book argues that the global political economy is hardening into regional blocs, in North America, Latin America, Europe and the Asia Pacific, each organized around a powerful economic base and mutually suspicious of one another. Bernard K. Gordon's masterful analysis shows that this division into regional blocs fundamentally threatens American prosperity by limiting US access to the world's richest and largest markets, and endangers US security by dividing the globe along economic and political lines. It is vital, he argues, that US trade policy recognizes that support for regional trade blocs is an act of political folly in our globalized economy. Combining foreign trade and world politics, this book looks at issues of US trade and strategy in Europe, East Asia and the West - particularly US - South America relations. Provocative, original and stimulating this book is essential reading for all those interested in American politics, trade and international political economy.Gordon, Bernard K. is the author of 'America's Trade Follies Turning Economic Leadership into Strategic Weakness' with ISBN 9780415253208 and ISBN 0415253209.