Reinventing The Trading Nation

In the span of few years, Japan and the United States have sharply reoriented their trade strategies as they navigate the dilemmas of a trading nation in their quest to ink trade agreements that can reconcile the goals of economic competitiveness, social legitimacy, and political viability. In the recent past, these two countries have twice met at the negotiation table — and the outcomes of each negotiation have been dramatically different. In the original TPP project, the United States and Japan were ready to forge a regional trade architecture; in the mini trade deal they settled for the minimum necessary to avoid friction in bilateral relations. However, the broader horizons of coordinated economic statecraft for Japan and the United States still beckon. These two nations have an abiding interest in working as partners to improve international economic governance through the dissemination of digital economy standards, the supply of high-quality infrastructure nance in the developing world, and the codi cation of rules that alleviate the distortions of state capitalism in the trading system. Equally pressing and consequential is for the allies to work towards achieving a high-quality comprehensive bilateral trade agreement and engineer an American return to the regional economic architecture.