Resolve U.s. Trade Policy Decision-making System

As Chinese and American economy become more and more interdependent today, trade disputes and conflicts between the two countries is on the rise as well. Massive trade deficit in the United States have created growing sentiment for protection. China has many times been taken as the scapegoat for the problem, and Sino-U.S trade issue is more and more under the spot. Thus, it is essential that the two countries enhance mutual understanding. On our part, understanding the U.S mechanism of the making of trade policy will help us better tackle trade disputes between the two countries, as the ancient Chinese maxim goes"Know your opponent".This paper first introduced various factors influencing the making of U.S trade policy, that is, various exogenous variables imposing on the trade policy making process. Here, I will apply the level-analysis methods in International Political Economy to put those variables into three categories to further discuss: factors on the system-state level, factors on the state-domestic bureaucracy level as well as factors on the bureaucracy-individual level.Then, the paper will illustrate on the trade policy making mechanism of the United States and elaborate on the specific role each agency in the mechanism plays. It will focus on key actors like the Congress, president, Interest Group.To put the analysis of this paper into perspective, I will then discuss a few trade policy making cases and then summarize the conclusion. Due to the broad-arching nature of trade issue, various factors impose on U.S trade policy making mechanism; the institutional arrangement of this mechanism digested all those factors and U.S trade policy is thus made. Overall, this mechanism has steered U.S trade policy from sheer protectionism after WWII.