| This study examines issues in the implementation of a major, and controversial, provision of the 1988 Trade Act devised to create more lucrative prospects for U.S. exports in international markets by challenging foreign trade barriers egregiously inhospitable to U.S. interests. The provision was Super 301, an amendment to an existing part of the trade law concerned with the problem of unfair competition in international trade and how to respond to violations of U.S. rights resulting therefrom.; In enacting the Super 301 amendment, Congress gave the executive a definitive modus operandi to follow in pursuit of unfair foreign traders, a series of deadlines to meet, and non-discretionary trade sanctions to put teeth in the process. The strategy was intended to force "priority" nations, with trade policies and practices inimical to the best and most promising of U.S. exports, to do some soul searching, reconsider their protectionism, and opt for markets based on principles of openness, competition and choice.; The implementation of the Super 301 amendment was interesting for the countries not designated priority unfair traders as much as for those cited. The European Community was the most significant of the Super 301 non-priorities. Notwithstanding its anti-competitive practices adversely affecting exports from the United States, the decision of the U.S. administration was that it was neither necessary nor wise to make the law apply to the EC.; This study, a case study of implementation, is of the main political, institutional and policy dimensions of that decision. It describes the trade barriers in the case together with other relevant aspects of the Euro-American economic relationship, such as EC 1992 and the condition of the bilateral trade balance. Its analysis is that favorable political circumstances aided the decision not to enforce Super 301 against the EC and that, in the context of the trade issue broadly understood, the policy was correct on the merits. |
