In his new book, Ernest Preeg analyzes international trade and investment in the 1990s and lays out a comprehensive U.S. trade strategy for the uncertain period ahead. He examines the influence of the World Trade Organization (WTO) and argues that economic globalization is beneficial to the U.S. economy in the short- to medium-term while raising important questions about national sovereignty and security over the longer term. Preeg believes regional free trade agreements will soon encompass the majority of world trade, but they can conflict with the WTO's multilateral objectives. The central challenge for U.S. trade strategy, then, is to integrate the now largely separate multilateral and regional tracks of the world trading system.

The first essay assesses U.S. interests in economic globalization, the second examines recent steps toward free trade at the multilateral and regional levels, and the next three offer an in-depth critique of U.S. regional free trade objectives in the Americas, across the Pacific, and possibly with Europe. The final essay presents a multilateral/regional synthesis for going from here to free trade over the coming decade.

The recently concluded Uruguay Round of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) will undoubtedly lead to a fundamental transformation of the world trading system as an instrument of a global economy. In Traders in a Brave New World, Ernest H. Preeg, a distinguished former U.S. diplomat and trade negotiator, presents a blow-by-blow account of the Uruguay Round, an examination of the historical context in which it took place, and an insider's assessment of the agreement's future impact on the international trading system.

Preeg places the Uruguay Round in the broader context of global politics and economics, showing how changes in the world order—from the collapse of communism to dramatic economic reforms in developing countries—influenced both the topics of negotiations and their outcome. He then assesses the final GATT agreement as a case study in international negotiations and evaluates its probable effects on income and trade.

Finally, Preeg looks to the short- and long-term issues confronting future trade-policy negotiators. He shows that the international trade agenda will consist of three evolving types of agreement—further multilateral commitments, regional free-trade agreements, and selective bilateral accords. Going to the heart of current debates on the "new world order," an important final chapter evaluates the political and economic relationships that will result from the international trading system.