Institutional Reform and Trade Liberalization 671 The Magic Bullet:The RTAA and the Death of U.S.(Tariff)Protectionism The immediate origins of the RTAA lie in the elections of 1932 in which the Demo- crats won massive majorities in both the House and Senate and installed Roosevelt in the White House.Trade policy initially took a backseat to the new administration's ambitious domestic plans,and Roosevelt himself backed away from staking out a clear position on the trade issue,but he did appoint Cordell Hull,long-time champion of the free-trade cause in Congress,as his secretary of state.Having reluctantly accepted that unilateral tariff reductions were politically impractical in the midst of recession,Hull began to champion bilateral agreements with trading partners as"the next best method''of reform.3 In 1933 he drafted a bill authorizing the president to negotiate such treaties.That bill became the basis for the RTAA,written as an amend- ment to the infamous 1930 Smoot-Hawley tariff laws and granting the president authority (for three years)to negotiate alterations of up to 50 percent in the existing import duties.When that initial authority expired in 1937,Congress renewed it and continued to do so in the decades that followed.In later years,the president's author- ity was expanded to cover negotiations over a range of nontariff barriers to trade, although various procedural and monitoring provisions were also introduced to con- strain executive behavior.4 The effects of the RTAA seem profound,at least prima facie.Between 1934 and 1939,twenty-two separate agreements reducing tariffs were negotiated under its au- thority.5 After World War II,extensions of the authority enabled both Democratic and Republican administrations to take a leadership role in negotiating multilateral tariff reductions in successive rounds of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT).Figure 1 plots the data on estimated levels of U.S.protection between 1824 and 1994,using standard measures of average ad valorem tariffs (the annual receipts from customs and import duties as a percentage of the annual value of all imports and the value of all dutiable imports).The case for 1934 as the beginning of a radical change in U.S.trade politics appears strong.Estimated tariffs reached peaks during the years of Republican control after the Civil War and between 1922 and 1930,and though the Democrats did lower protection significantly in 1894 and 1913 during their brief stints in power,a steady long-term reversal only began in the 1930s.6 Considerable caution is warranted here,however,in dealing only with these mea- sures of tariff levels.The standard estimates have been defended as a decent overall indicator of protection,?but they have significant weaknesses.One problem is that they can shift as a result of changes in the composition of imports:decreasing,for 3.Hul11948,356. 4.Destler1992,71-76. 5.Tasca 1938. 6.One problem with a straight"institutionalist"interpretation of events here is immediately apparent from Figure 1:in the pre-1934 period,in which the rules of tariff policymaking were essentially constant, policy nevertheless varied substantially.It is very difficult to classify this era as representative of one stable protectionist equilibrium. 7.0ECD1985.Institutional Reform and Trade Liberalization 671 The Magic Bullet: The RTAA and the Death of U.S. (Tariff) Protectionism The immediate origins of the RTAA lie in the elections of 1932 in which the Demo￾crats won massive majorities in both the House and Senate and installed Roosevelt in the White House. Trade policy initially took a backseat to the new administration's ambitious domestic plans, and Roosevelt himself backed away from staking out a clear position on the trade issue, but he did appoint Cordell Hull, long-time champion of the free-trade cause in Congress, as his secretary of state. Having reluctantly accepted that unilateral tariff reductions were politically impractical in the midst of recession, Hull began to champion bilateral agreements with trading partners as "the next best method" of ref~rm.~ In 1933 he drafted a bill authorizing the president to negotiate such treaties. That bill became the basis for the RTAA, written as an amend￾ment to the infamous 1930 Smoot-Hawley tariff laws and granting the president authority (for three years) to negotiate alterations of up to 50 percent in the existing import duties. When that initial authority expired in 1937, Congress renewed it and continued to do so in the decades that followed. In later years, the president's author￾ity was expanded to cover negotiations over a range of nontariff barriers to trade, although various procedural and monitoring provisions were also introduced to con￾strain executive beha~ior.~ The effects of the RTAA seem profound, at least prima facie. Between 1934 and 1939, twenty-two separate agreements reducing tariffs were negotiated under its au￾th~rity.~After World War 11, extensions of the authority enabled both Democratic and Republican administrations to take a leadership role in negotiating multilateral tariff reductions in successive rounds of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). Figure 1 plots the data on estimated levels of U.S. protection between 1824 and 1994, using standard measures of average ad valorem tariffs (the annual receipts from customs and import duties as a percentage of the annual value of all imports and the value of all dutiable imports). The case for 1934 as the beginning of a radical change in U.S. trade politics appears strong. Estimated tariffs reached peaks during the years of Republican control after the Civil War and between 1922 and 1930, and though the Democrats did lower protection significantly in 1894 and 1913 during their brief stints in power, a steady long-term reversal only began in the 1930~.~ Considerable caution is warranted here, however, in dealing only with these mea￾sures of tariff levels. The standard estimates have been defended as a decent overall indicator of pr~tection,~ but they have significant weaknesses. One problem is that they can shift as a result of changes in the composition of imports: decreasing, for 3. Hull 1948,356. 4. Destler 1992, 71-76. 5. Tasca 1938. 6. One problem with a straight "institutionalist" interpretation of events here is immediately apparent from Figure 1: in the pre-1934 period, in which the rules of tariff policymaking were essentially constant, policy nevertheless varied substantially. It is very difficult to classify this era as representative of one stable protectionist equilibrium. 7. OECD 1985