B.W. Muirhead traces the development of Canadian trade policy and trade patterns from the Second World War to the election of the Diefenbaker government in 1957. Scholars have emphasized the importance of this period in determining Canadian trade patterns, but have disagreed about the options Canada had and the decisions Canadian governments made. Muirhead demonstrates that Canada's options were so severely constrained by the postwar context that there were in effect no choices to make. He thus makes a strong case against the theory that Canada "sold out" to the United States.

"Canada is a relatively small, open economy with a large amount of foreign trade relative to its gross national product. The majority of that trade - over 70 percent - is with the United States. Policies that either limit or encourage foreign trade are therefore more important for Canada than for many other countries."--

Chapters are entitled: The International Trading Environment, The 1982 Reorganization, Approaching International Macro-Economicand Monetary Issues, The Canadian Trade Community, The ImportPolicy Regime, The Arm's-Length Import Institutions and PullingIt All Together.

From the Executive Summary: This study of federal government trade decision-making focuses on the traditional concerns of commercial policy - tariffs and non-tariff barriers to imports...In contrast to many IRRP studies, this one does not specifically aspire to reform the trade decision-making process in Canada. Its more restricted purpose is to provide, as objectivelly as possible, a descriptive analysis of how trade decisions were made by the Trudeau government in the years 1968 to 1979. This empirical orientation is reflected in our testing of several well-known decision models against information gathered in interviews with politicians, public servants and private citizens. These decision models are outlined in Chapter One....Chapter Two consists of a description of the broad environment of trade decision-makers...It is intended primarily as backgroun for the uninitiated. The three chapters following analyze the roles of private groups and government institutions participating in the process off making trade policy....Chapter Six presents a case study using the various decision models as analytical tools. It deals with the imposition of quantitiative controls on "low cost" textiles and clothing imports...Chapter Seven summarizes the general features of trade decision-making in the Trudea government....Chapters Eight and Nine present a comparative analysis of decision-making in several trade policy "subsystems"....The study ends with a discussion of the frequency of and the conditions requisite to the functioning of the different decision models.

During the past thirty years, international trade agreements have focused increasingly on areas of provincial jurisdiction. In The Provinces and Canadian Foreign Trade Policy, Kukucha argues that Canadian provinces have maintained a level of autonomy in response to these developments, sometimes even influencing Canada's global trade relations and the evolution of international norms and standards. The first comprehensive review of provincial foreign trade policy in Canada, the book highlights the convergence of debates related to federalism, Canadian foreign policy, and the global political economy as they are played out in the negotiation and implementation of international trade agreements. It will be of interest to students and practitioners of political science, public policy, and economics.

"This is one of the best accounts of Canadian-American relations to appear in many, many years." - Thomas Keating, University of Alberta