WTO 시대의 슈퍼 301조

This paper argues that the aggressive and unilateral nature of US trade polcy would remain the same despite the change in intemational trade environment. Super 301, an aggressive market-opening measure, has been used as a key weapon for US trade warriors since the mid 198Os. With the beginning of the WTO system in 1995, there was an expectation that the US trade policy would tum ’ softer. ’ The current US trade policy rests on the principle of aggressive reciprocity and unilateral sanctions, which is basicaUy contracitory to WTO’ s multilateralism. The US govemment, however, keeps on wielding Super 301 claiming that it is not incompatible with the WTO legal system. The author suggests the policy regime model as a useful tool for explaining and predicting US trade policy. Policy regime is defined as a set of implicit or explicit principles, norms, rules, and decisionmaking procedures around which policymakers` expectations converge in a given poJicy issue-area. Once established, policy regimes tend to endure far longer than the initial circumstances which led to their creation. The institutional persistency of poJicy regimes is the key to understand the revivals of Super 301 even after the launch of WTO. The author also augues that, even in the era of WTO, the US govemment will continue to rely on aggressive trade policy measures such as Super 30l.