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Events • February 28, 2019 

# *Trade and American Leadership: The Paradoxes of Power and Wealth from Alexander Hamilton to Donald Trump*

From the nation building of Alexander Hamilton to the trade wars of Donald Trump, trade policy has been a key instrument of American power and wealth. The open trading system that the United States sponsored after the Second World War has served US interests by promoting cooperation and prosperity but has also allowed the allies to become more independent and China to rise. The case studies in *Trade and American Leadership*examine how the value of preferential trade programs is undercut by the multilateral liberalization that the United States promoted for generations, and how trade sanctions tend to be either too economically costly to impose or too modest to matter. These problems are exacerbated by a domestic political system in which the gains from trade are unevenly distributed, power is fragmented, and strategies are easily undermined. *Trade and American Leadership* places special emphasis on today’s challenges and on the rising danger of economic nationalism.

[![Creative Commons License](/build/cato_2020/images/creative-commons.svg)](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/) 
This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/). 

##### Featuring 

##### Craig VanGrasstek 

Adjunct Lecturer in Public Policy, Harvard Kennedy School 

[![James Bacchus - cropped](/sites/cato.org/files/styles/author_picture/public/2025-04/jim_baccuhus-cropped.jpg?itok=sQTKwZ3_)](/people/james-bacchus) 

##### [James Bacchus](/people/james-bacchus)

Adjunct Scholar, Herbert A. Stiefel Center for Trade Policy Studies, Cato Institute; Former Chairman, Appellate Body of the World Trade Organization

[![Daniel J. Ikenson](/sites/cato.org/files/styles/author_picture/public/2021-01/Dan%20Ikenson.jpg?itok=mP30bIXr)](/people/daniel-j-ikenson) 

##### [Daniel J. Ikenson](/people/daniel-j-ikenson)

Former Director, Herbert A. Stiefel Center for Trade Policy Studies