It is impossible to understand the 1990s political landscape without appreciating the smaller yet pivotal transformations that occurred in the 1970s. Throughout the decade, continued changes to U.S. trade law, geopolitical developments in East Asia, and novel shipping technology combined to change the incentive structure that American businesses faced. This began a fundamental alteration in how these companies saw international trade. Slowly, American firms that once viewed trade as a way to expand the market for their American-made products began to view trade as a means to restructure their own production processes: exchanging a focus on foreign sales for a focus on foreign workers…

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