Review of International Political Economy

ISSN: (Print) (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rrip20

Who votes for free trade and when? Geopolitics as
the source of legislative preferences on free trade
agreements
Sung Eun Kim & Joonseok Yang
To cite this article: Sung Eun Kim & Joonseok Yang (2023) Who votes for free trade and when?
Geopolitics as the source of legislative preferences on free trade agreements, Review ofInternational Political Economy, 30:6, 2257-2284, DOI: 10.1080/09692290.2022.2144927
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/09692290.2022.2144927

View supplementary material

Published online: 20 Dec 2022.

Submit your article to this journal

Article views: 704

View related articles

View Crossmark data

Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found athttps://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=rrip20

REVIEW OF INTERNATIONAL POLITICAL ECONOMY
2023, VOL. 30, NO. 6, 2257–2284
https://doi.org/10.1080/09692290.2022.2144927

Who votes for free trade and when? Geopolitics as
the source of legislative preferences on free
trade agreements
Sung Eun Kima

and Joonseok Yangba

Department of Political Science, Korea University, Seoul 02841, South Korea; bDepartment of
Political Science & Diplomacy, Sungkyunkwan University, Seoul, South Korea
ABSTRACTWhy do legislators support some free trade agreements but oppose others? Despitea wide variation in legislative support for free trade agreements, the heterogeneous
preferences of legislators have received little attention in the literature, whichlargely focuses on general trade policy preferences of legislators and individual voters. We bring in geopolitical factors as a key source of legislative preferences on
specific free trade agreements. Using voting records of the U.S. House representatives on all major bills related to free trade agreements, we find that the geostrategic importance of potential trading partner has a substantial effect on voting for
trade agreements. We find that legislators become less sensitive to their constituents’ economic interests when considering trade agreements with allies or countries
with closely aligned interests. This highlights the importance of examining security
externalities of trade cooperation.
KEYWORDS

free trade agreement; congress; legislative voting; international political economy; security externality

Introduction
A government’s decision to expand or restrict international trade often hinges on
geopolitical considerations. Gowa (1994: 6) provides a compelling logic for thislinkage: “[T]he real income gains that motivate free trade are also the source of the
security externalities that can either impede or facilitate trade: Trade with an adversary produces a security diseconomy; trade with an ally produces a positive externality.” Morrow, Siverson, and Tabares (1998: 650) also state, “All else equal, pairsof states with good political relations should have more trade than states with poor
political relations.”
This logic frequently appears in public debate over trade policy. Supporters of
the US trade agreement with South Korea emphasized a security rationale that it
would consolidate the alliance (Lee & Kim, 2011). More recently, many foreign
CONTACT Joonseok Yang
jsyang01@skku.edu
Department of Political Science & Diplomacy,
Sungkyunkwan University, 25-2 Sungkyunkwan- ro, Myeongnyun 3(sam)ga-dong, Seoul 03063, South Korea
Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/09692290.
2022.2144927
ß 2022 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group2258

S. E. KIM AND J. YANG

policy experts have recommended isolating China from international commerce inorder to stop fueling its economic ascendance (Kim, 2017). During the Obamaadministration, foreign policy elites in Washington viewed the Trans-PacificPartnership as a policy aimed at China, one that Defense Secretary Ashton Carter
considered “as important to the military as a new aircraft carrier.”1
Despite the prominent role of security logic in trade policy discussions, the literature on legislative trade preferences has paid limited attention to how legislators
consider the security implications of trade policy, focusing instead on the effects ofideology, constituent economic interests or interest group influences on legislators’
support for free trade (e.g. Hiscox, 2002; Milner & Tingley, 2011; Osgood, 2022;
Owen, 2017). While Milner and Tingley (2011) demonstrate that legislators
respond to foreign policy concerns, they focus on whether legislators yield to thepresident’s foreign policy priorities, rather than examining legislators’ own foreign
policy preferences. Yet a series of empirical anecdotes suggest that geopolitics is an
important consideration for legislators. For instance, Representative Gregory Meeks
emphasized the importance of security considerations with regard to free trade
agreements (FTAs) with South Korea and Colombia: “Trade is never just about
economics. It’s also about our relationships with other nations, our allies. It’s aboutstrengthening the rule of law, and it’s about deepening ties.”2
To examine whether geopolitical factors indeed influence legislative trade policy
preferences, we explore the security externality hypothesis at the legislator level.
We argue that geopolitical factors moderate the effects of economic concerns on
legislative trade preferences. While geopolitical factors do not trump economic considerations, the effects of economic concerns become less influential when legislators consider an FTA with strategically important countries. We propose two
possible explanations. First, geopolitical factors can directly shape individual legislators’ trade policy preferences. Legislators are more likely to favor expanding trade
when they expect a positive security externality from the trade agreement. Second,
geopolitical factors can indirectly influence legislative positions by shaping public
opinion on trade deals. Carnegie and Gaikwad (2022) show that voters evaluate thesecurity implications of trade policies and exhibit preferences for trade with allies.
Thus, legislators would be less (more) concerned about the economic effects of an
FTA with allies (non-allies) because the public is generally more (less) supportiveof such a trade deal.
We test this expectation by analyzing all major roll-call votes on the implementation of trade agreements in the US House. From the 108th to the 112th
Congress, the US House voted on one multilateral trade agreement with the
Dominican Republic and Central America (DR-CAFTA) and ten bilateral trade
agreements. The partner countries in these agreements vary considerably acrosseconomic and political dimensions. Exploiting this partner-level variation, we
examine how security concerns and constituents’ economic interests interact toshape legislators’ positions on international trade. We measure security concerns
by alliance status and foreign policy preferences as revealed through the voting patterns at the United Nations General Assembly. In order to measure constituents’economic interests related to a specific trade agreement, we construct a partnerspecific measure of constituent economic interests. We consider whether an industry is export-oriented or import-competing vis-a-vis the same industry of partnercountries and calculate the share of employment in export-oriented and import-

REVIEW OF INTERNATIONAL POLITICAL ECONOMY

2259

competing sectors in each congressional district, which varies significantly acrossdifferent trade agreements within the same district. With these measures, we examine whether and to what extent geopolitical factors moderate the effects of economic interests on legislators’ votes on trade agreements.
Our analysis finds that legislators are less sensitive to their constituents’ economic interests when considering trade agreements with allies or countries withclosely aligned interests. In contrast, the effects of economic interests are more pronounced when legislators vote on trade agreements with non-allies or countries
with less closely aligned interests. Specifically, our estimation suggests that a one
percent increase in employment in import-competing (export-oriented) industries
in a congressional district is associated with about a 3-percentage point decrease (2percentage point increase) in the probability that the district’s member of Congress
would support an FTA when the partner country is a non-ally. Such economic
interests have a substantially weaker effect on support for an FTA with an ally
partner (less than 1 percentage point decrease in the probability of supporting an
FTA with a one percent increase in import-competing industries). On the whole,the evidence is consistent with the security externalities hypothesis. When legislators expect a positive (negative) security externality, they become less (more) concerned about the agreement’s economic implications for their constituents.
We find further evidence for the security externalities hypothesis through ananalysis of congressional speeches. We review all floor speeches by members of theHouse about trade agreements during the examined period. Our analysis finds thatlegislators indeed mention security benefits in about 20% of their floor speeches on
trade agreements. In particular, legislators emphasize that trade agreements withallies strengthen the ties between the US and the partner countries. Not surprisingly, legislators are more likely to mention the security benefits when considering
trade agreements with allies or countries with aligned strategic interests. Thesefindings corroborate the evidence from the roll-call vote analysis by illuminating
the logic of legislators’ roll-call voting behavior with regard to trade policy.
Our findings contribute to the literature on the role of security concerns in
trade policy making. The international political economy literature has long recognized the importance of security considerations not only for bilateral economic
relations (e.g., Gowa & Edward, 1993; Mansfield & Bronson 1997) but also for economic cooperation in the multilateral context (Davis & Pratt, 2021). Yet, empiricalstudies on the interaction between security and economic interests have mostly
focused on correlations at the country level using the gravity model (e.g. Glick &Taylor, 2010; Long, 2008). While these studies suggest that trade generally follows
the flag, it remains unclear whether security concerns trump economic considerations in shaping legislative preferences. We find that legislators are responsive totheir constituents’ economic interests, but the effects of economic considerations
are less pronounced when they consider trade deals with countries with closelyaligned interests in military and political cooperation. The findings offer microlevel evidence for the security externality hypothesis.
The rest of the paper is structured as follows. We discuss the literature on thelinkage between security and trade and develop our theoretical expectation for how
security and economic considerations interact to shape legislators’ positions on
international trade. We then present our data and empirical approach. The subsequent section presents the findings and a series of robustness tests, followed by an

2260

S. E. KIM AND J. YANG

analysis of legislators’ floor speeches on trade bills. The final section discusses theimplications of our findings.

Geopolitics and legislative support for trade agreements
The connection between security and trade has long drawn the attention of scholars and practitioners of international relations. The “commercial peace” hypothesis
posits that economic integration reduces interstate conflict (e.g. Russett & Oneal,
2001), but there is a greater consensus on the reverse proposition that trade tends
to follow the flag (Schultz, 2015). A series of empirical studies have shown thatwars, militarized interstate disputes, and diplomatic conflicts negatively affect traderelations between states (e.g. Keshk, Pollins, & Reuveny, 2004; Long, 2008; Pollins,1989). Among a number of underlying mechanisms, Gowa and Edward (1993) suggest the “security externalities” hypothesis, that economic gains from trade can bediverted to military resources. That is to say, countries prefer less trade with adversaries than with allies because trade with adversaries (allies) produces a negative(positive) externality.
Empirical evidence for the effects of security on trade (or vice versa) draws
almost entirely from country-level analysis. For instance, Glick and Taylor (2010)
demonstrate large negative effects of war on bilateral trade over the period
1870–1997 using a gravity model of international trade. In a similar vein, Long
(2008) shows that expectations of domestic or interstate conflict are negatively correlated with bilateral trade levels, again using the gravity model. Empirical support
for the “security externalities” hypothesis also comes mostly from country-level
analysis. Gowa and Edward (1993), drawing on bilateral trade flows data of an 80year period, find that alliances have a markedly large and direct impact on bilateral
trade flows, especially in bipolar (rather than multipolar) systems. Relatedly,
Mansfield and Bronson (1997) find an interaction effect between alliances and preferential trading arrangements, both of which independently exert a positive effecton trade flows and, in combination, generate more trade than does either alone.
Recently, a few studies began to examine the effects of security concerns on
individual preferences about international economic integration. DiGiuseppe andKleinberg (2019) demonstrate through conjoint analysis in the US that individuals
are more likely to support preferential trade agreement with allies than with rivals.
They also find that individuals are less likely to consider economic arguments for
trade liberalization when primed to consider security-related implications of traderelations. Carnegie and Gaikwad (2022) also add other micro-level evidence on theeffects of security concerns on trade preferences. Drawing on a series of survey
experiments in the US and India, they find that citizens consistently prefer tradingwith allies over adversaries by a large margin, especially when informed that trade
will benefit the partner country’s military. This serves as micro-level evidence forthe “security externalities” hypothesis.
While the relationship between security and trade has long drawn scholarlyinterest, there has been little exploration of how security considerations shape legislative preferences with regard to trade policy. Do legislators take geopolitical factors
into account when evaluating trade policy? Answering this question is critical forunderstanding how democratic governments expand or reduce trade with foreigncountries depending on security interests. Presidents are free to propose andREVIEW OF INTERNATIONAL POLITICAL ECONOMY

2261

negotiate trade agreements with foreign countries, but due to the separation of
powers in democracies, they need legislative support for their proposed trade agreements. It is in this context that Milner and Tingley (2011) examine the influence ofa president’s foreign policy concerns on legislators. They find that legislators are
more likely to support trade liberalization when endorsed by a president who
shares their party affiliation. Yet this evidence still leaves open the question ofwhether security concerns influence legislative voting decisions regardless of thepresident’s endorsement.
The previous literature on legislative position on trade has largely focused on
the consequences of trade on constituents’ interests. Legislators pay attention towhether import-competing or export-oriented industries are concentrated in theirdistricts because geographically concentrated industries are more likely to mobilize
politically, although the effects depend on political institutions (Busch & Reinhardt,
2000; Rickard, 2018). A host of studies examine the economic interests of constituents as the main determinants of legislators’ support for free trade, drawing on the
Stolper-Samuelson or the Ricardo-Viner models. For instance, Hiscox’s (2002) analysis of legislative votes on trade legislation focuses on domestic political economy
sources to test the predictions of the two models. Owen (2017) adds to the literature by demonstrating the effects of constituents’ vulnerability to offshoring on
legislative support for free trade. Overall, the literature consistently finds that constituents’ material interests are the key predictor of legislative preferences on trade,with only limited attention paid to how security concerns shape legislative positions
on trade.
As to the effects of security concerns on trade preferences, several studies offer
insight from historical examples. For instance, in the study of trade policy making
in Britain, France and the US from 1860 to 1990, Verdier (1995: p.42) notes that“when security becomes a salient, consensual issue, trade is likely to follow it in its
wake. Voters are thus rallied as a nation on one side or the other of the tradedebate; and either protectionists or free traders are offered a unique opportunity torout the other side.” In a similar vein, Bailey (2003: p.171) suggests that “when the
public is very concerned about a foreign policy issue [ … ] the entire system is fundamentally changed and many foreign policies that are difficult in “normal" times
gather support from all corners, including significant support from Congress.” Seo(2015) examines the security-economy nexus in “normal” times, focusing on House
representatives’ roll-call votes on the Korea-US Free Trade Agreement (KORUS
FTA). The analysis finds that security considerations, measured in terms of eachlegislator’s foreign policy conservatism, were positively associated with an increased
likelihood of voting for the trade agreement.
Two related questions emerge from the literature. First, do legislators prefer totrade more with allies than with adversaries? Second, how do legislators balance
domestic and international pressures when considering trade policy? While Aldrichet al. (2006) suggest that both economic interests and national security concerns
shape public opinion towards foreign policies, it remains under-explored how legislators respond to economic interests and national security concerns. Facing the
public’s dual preferences—material interests and security concerns, legislators may
consider both when making voting decisions. Given the often-competing pressuresof economic and security considerations, the answers to these questions are
not obvious.

2262

S. E. KIM AND J. YANG

On the one hand, national security considerations may trump the economic
interests of constituents. As voters are often not very well informed about trade
and are thus unlikely to hold politicians accountable for trade policy (Guisinger,
2009; Rho & Tomz, 2017), legislators may prioritize security considerations, especially when foreign policy concerns become salient in public debate (Verdier,
1995). Also, legislators are likely to prioritize security considerations due to presidential influence (Milner & Tingley, 2011). Presidents often stoke national security
concerns to draw legislative support for trade deals, which constitutes anotherchannel through which legislative voting may be affected.3
On the other hand, it is also plausible to expect that legislators put greater
weights on economic considerations over security concerns. Even when voters are
not informed about trade policy, going against their interests can be risky because
other actors such as electoral challengers or interest groups may mobilize in favorof their interests (Bailey, 2001). With both perspectives in mind, we next turn todevelop our theoretical conjecture as to how geopolitical concerns interact withconstituents’ interests to shape legislative voting on trade policy.

Theoretical framework
In deriving legislative preferences with regard to trade agreements, we consider two
main factors—distributive politics and geopolitical considerations. Here, we are primarily interested in how the two considerations interact in shaping legislative voting on trade agreements. While geopolitical factors are an important considerationfor voters and legislators, our theoretical and empirical focus is to determine how
the effects of economic considerations change conditional on the political relationship with the trade partner, instead of examining the independent effects of security considerations.4 Legislators’ concerns about economic benefits or costs from thetrade agreements may become less pronounced if they expect other political benefits from the trade agreements. This section provides our reasoning on how thetwo factors together influence legislative preferences over trade agreements.
We consider the consequences of trade agreements in two dimensions—economic gains/losses and geopolitical outcomes. While trade policy generates concentrated economic gains and losses for domestic groups, the signing of trade
agreements also has geopolitical consequences that affect the general population.
For instance, a country can expect positive security externalities from trade expansion with allies (Gowa, 1994; Gowa & Edward, 1993). As everyone is expected tobenefit from these positive externalities, the security benefits are diffuse across the
population. In this sense, the economic benefits and costs of trade are concentrated, while its security benefits and costs are more diffuse across a country.
Combining these two dimensions, we argue that geopolitical considerations
moderate the effects of economic concerns on legislative trade preferences. Whileeconomic effects on constituents shape legislators’ attitudes toward trade policy,
these effects are less influential when the legislators consider free trade with allies
or countries that share security interests compared to with non-allies.
To begin with the economic dimension, trade policy generates concentrated economic gains and losses that are distributed unevenly across the country. While
traditional trade models such as the Stolper-Samuelson and Ricardo-Viner models
provide divergent predictions about which groups would support tradeREVIEW OF INTERNATIONAL POLITICAL ECONOMY

2263

liberalization, both models predict concentrated distributive consequences of tradeliberalization. In both models, trade creates winners and losers.5 The expected economic effects of trade liberalization, determined by direct export opportunities,
import competition or the globalization of supply chains, are the important driversof economic actors’ preferences over trade (Milner, 1988; Osgood, 2018). As thegeographic concentration of winners and losers is unevenly distributed, theexpected effects of trade liberalization vary significantly across districts. As legislators reflect their constituents’ interests in their trade policy decisions, they become
more (less) likely to support trade liberalization when winners (losers) from tradeare concentrated in their districts.6 In particular, geographically concentrated
industries are better able to mobilize politically and exert a considerable influence
over legislators’ decision making (Busch & Reinhardt, 2000; Rickard, 2018). This
leads to the following hypothesis:
Hypothesis 1. Legislators are more likely to vote for (against) a trade agreement whenindustries in their districts are more likely to gain (lose) from the agreement.

In addition to distributive considerations, legislators take into account the strategic implications of trade policy. The security externalities hypothesis suggests thatcountries tend to trade more with each other when they share security interests. As
trade produces economic gains for trade partners, countries can expect positive
security externalities from trade expansion with allies (Gowa, 1994; Gowa &Edward, 1993). Pollins (1989: 740) also suggest other mechanisms through which
political alignments or political climates affect trade flows: “the desire to reward
friends, to punish adversaries, and to minimize risk.” Pollins (1989: 740) notes that
trade expansion often follows diplomatic ties because “consumers may wish to
express goodwill or solidarity toward those whom they identify as friends.” In otherwords, there are diffuse political benefits from signing trade agreements with countries that have favorable political relationship.
Legislators may consider a trade policy’s geopolitical implications in their voting
decisions for two reasons—policy-seeking and office-seeking. First, the expectationof positive security and geopolitical benefits may shape legislators’ personal policy
preferences. As legislators evaluate the implications of a trade policy at the national
level, they may show more support for trade agreements with allies or countries
that share security interests. Second, voters are more likely to reward legislators forsupporting a trade agreement with allies. In voters’ minds, the importance of geopolitical factors appears to be highly salient. Carnegie and Gaikwad’s (2022) analysis offers micro-level evidence for the security externality hypothesis, showingthat voters consistently prefer trading with allies over trading with adversaries.
Though trade itself is frequently a low salient topic, it tends to become a highly
salient issue when its geopolitical considerations and implications on national
security are acknowledged, motivating legislators to take public preferences seriously into account when making trade policy decisions (Bailey, 2003; Carnegie &Gaikwad, 2022).77
How then do legislators balance economic concerns of their constituents andgeopolitical considerations? We expect that geopolitical considerations do notnecessarily trump economic considerations with regard to constituents’ interests.
The expected winners and losers from international trade tend to mobilize andexert significant political pressure on their representatives (Milner & Tingley,

2264

S. E. KIM AND J. YANG

2011). Even when legislators see security benefits from the FTA deal, the presenceof strong political pressure at the constituency-level can still motivate them to takethe constituents’ economic interests into account. Nevertheless, the expectation of
positive security externalities and political benefits can reduce the relative influenceof economic considerations of concentrated interests.
Consider a trade agreement with non-allies. While the average voter would gainfrom the trade agreement, legislators would still be concerned about domestic
groups that expect salient gains or losses from the agreement. Since the benefits
and costs of trade are concentrated, interest groups easily mobilize and lobby legislators. Legislators would then take into the interests of concentrated winners or losers in their voting decisions. Now consider a trade agreement with allies.
Legislators are still concerned about its distributive consequences and economic
interests of winners and losers. Yet, given the same level of economic benefits or
costs for their constituents, legislators would be more likely to vote for a trade
agreement with allies than non-allies because of the expectation of positive security
externalities. The benefits for the average voter become larger when considering
the agreement with allies than with non-allies given security benefits that are diffuse across individual voters.8 This reduces the relative influence of concentrated
interests, which leads to the following hypothesis:
Hypothesis 2. The effects of economic interests are moderated when liberalizing trade withcoun- tries sharing security interests.

It should be noted that we expect a symmetric influence of security concerns on
the effects of import-competing and export-oriented industries. We expect that economic considerations are the main driver of legislative policy preferences whensigning a trade agreement with a non-ally, with concentration of import-competing(export-oriented) interests decreasing (increasing) the possibility of supporting
trade agreement.9 Yet, the effects become reduced when considering a trade agreement with an ally. All else equal, legislators representing districts with import-competing industries would become more likely to support the trade agreement withan ally than the one with a non-ally, which will have the effect of moderating theinfluence of import-competing industries. Similarly, legislators would be more
likely to support the trade agreement with an ally than with a non-ally, even when
their districts do not have export-oriented interests, which reduces the influence ofimport-competing or export-oriented interests in shaping legislative voting decisions.
In order to test the hypothesis, we examine how the effects of economic interests interact with geopolitical considerations to shape legislative voting decisions on
trade agreements. The following section discusses our empirical strategy.

Data and empirical strategy
To test the effects of geopolitical considerations on legislative support for trade liberalization, we construct an original dataset of roll-call voting records on all free
trade agreement bills. We develop a district-level measure of the economic effectsof trade agreements for each trade bill and examine how geopolitical considerations
moderate the effects of economic interests on legislative support.

REVIEW OF INTERNATIONAL POLITICAL ECONOMY

2265

Roll-call votes on the trade agreements
Our analysis examines roll-call votes on the implementation of trade agreements in
the US House of Representatives from the 108th Congress (2003-4) to the 112th
Congress (2011-2). As our theoretical expectation centers on the effects of US geopolitical interests with regard to particular countries, we consider votes on specific
FTAs, excluding votes on trade liberalization in general (e.g. Trade Promotion
Authority).10
Also, we only examine votes on the final passage of FTA bills that are high profile and consequential to overall trade patterns (Chaudoin, Milner, & Tingley, 2010;
Theriault, 2008). Examining the PIPC Roll Call Datasets by Crespin and Rohde(2019), we identified the set of relevant roll-call votes by reviewing all votes classified as relating to foreign trade.11
Our dataset includes twelve bills on FTAs, listed in Table 1. These are a complete
list of the FTAs signed by the US after the Trade Promotion Authority (or the fasttrack) was approved in 2001. An exception is the FTA with Jordan, which is notincluded because the agreement waspassed by a voice vote with bipartisan support.
The US entered into these trade agreements with countries located in different
regions, with various regime types and economic sizes and varying degrees of strategic importance to the US. This wide variation allows us to examine the effects of different country-level factors on legislative voting decisions. Our dataset also covers
periods with a Republican President (from the 108th to the 110th Congress) and a
Democratic President (from the 111th to the 112th Congress).
Table 1 shows the vote outcomes for each bill included in the analysis. All theagreements passed with a majority voting for the FTA, but there appears to be considerable variation in legislative support across the bills. The agreement with
Bahrain was the most widely supported in the House, with 75.7% of legislators voting for its implementation. The US–Morocco FTA and the US–Australia FTA also
passed with strong support in the House, with 74.3% and 72.5% of legislators
respectively voting ‘yea’ on the implementation bills. The most contested bill was
the DR-CAFTA, which passed by a narrow margin of two votes (a vote of
217–215). For each legislator across the twelve bills, we construct a binary dependent variable coded ‘1’ if the legislator voted ‘yea’ and ‘0’ if ‘nay’. Abstentions aretreated as missing.
Measuring geopolitical concerns
We measure the varying degree of geopolitical alignment using two indicators: (1)military alliances and (2) similarity in foreign policy preferences. First, the presenceof an alliance treaty is a clear indication that member states’ geopolitical concerns
are aligned. As member states are obliged to defend their allies, they have sharedinterests in military and political cooperation. Using the Correlates of War (COW)
data (Gibler, 2009), we code a country as an ally (‘1’) if the US has a defense pactwith the country and as a non-ally (‘0’) otherwise. When the FTA includes multiple
partner countries, we average the values across the states. This is the case for the
DR- CAFTA, the only multilateral treaty in our dataset. As all partner countries of
the DR-CAFTA have defense treaties with the US, the value is coded 1.12 Amongthe others, six FTAs include US allies (Australia, Chile, Colombia, Panama, Peru

2266

S. E. KIM AND J. YANG

Table 1. List of FTA bills.
Title

Congress

United States-Singapore Free
Trade Agreement
United States-Chile Free Trade Agreement108th(2003-4)108th(2003-4)108th(2003-4)108th(2003-4)
109th(2005-6)109th(2005-6)109th(2005-6)
110th(2007-8)112th(2011-2)
112th(2011-2)
112th(2011-2)

United States-Australia Free
Trade Agreement
United States-Morocco Free
Trade Agreement
Dominican Republic-Central America-UnitedStates Free Trade Agreement
United States-Bahrain Free Trade Agreement
United States-Oman Free Trade Agreement
United States-Peru Trade
Promotion Agreement
United States-Colombia Trade
Promotion Agreement
United States-Panama Trade
Promotion Agreement
United States-Korea Free Trade Agreement

RollCall
Num.

Year

Yea
(%)

Nay
(%)

Abstention
(%)

432

2003

62.5

35.6

1.8

436

2003

62.1

35.9

2.1

375

2004

72.5

25.17

2.3

413

2004

74.3

22.8

3.0

443

2005

50.0

49.5

0.5

616

2005

75.7

22.0

2.3

392

2006

51.0

47.3

1.6

1060

2007

65.8

30.5

3.7

781

2011

60.5

38.6

0.9

782

2011

69.3

29.8

0.9

783

2011

64.2

34.9

0.9

and South Korea), and the rest are with non-allies (Bahrain, Morocco, Oman,
and Singapore).
Second, we consider similarity in foreign policy preferences between the US andother states. While the military alliance indicator captures alignment in geopoliticalconcerns, there is still considerable variation in foreign policy preferences evenamong allies. To capture such variation, we examine states’ foreign policy preferences revealed through their voting patterns in the United Nations General Assembly.
Bailey, Strezhnev, and Voeten (2017) developed an estimate of state ideal points
along a single dimension on a position vis-a-vis the US-led liberal order from 1946
to 2012. We use the absolute distance between a given state’s ideal point and the
US ideal point, with a closer distance indicating greater alignment in foreign policy
interests. In our data, the average absolute distance from the US ideal point is 2.84.
Australia is the most closely aligned with the US, followed by South Korea andPanama. Bahrain’s ideal point is furthest from the US ideal point, followed by
Morocco and Oman. For CAFTA, we utilize an average of the US ideal points
across the members.
As we examine those trade partners that receive roll-call votes after successfully
negotiating trade agreements with the US, all trade partners can be considered toshare geostrategic interests with the US to some extent. As geostrategic considerations
also play an important role in the decision to start negotiating trade agreements withpartner countries, there is a selection into this subset of countries that reach to theroll-call voting stage. While the variation in security externality among trade partners
subject to roll-call votes is therefore smaller than the variation across all countries,
there still exists a variation in the degree of geopolitical alignment in our sample
countries, as captured by different indicators of geopolitical concerns such as alliancestatus, UN voting alignment or the US troop deployment. We exploit this variationand explore how the variation affects legislators’ voting decisions.

REVIEW OF INTERNATIONAL POLITICAL ECONOMY

2267

Measuring economic interests
Our primary measures of economic interests are the partner-specific share of
employment in export-oriented (Export Employment) and import-competing sectors(Import Employment). We construct the measures separately for each trade bill inquestion because the degree of export orientation and import competition may differ depending on the trade partner(s).13 We first determine a given industry to beexport oriented (import competing) vis-a-vis the trade partner’s industry when the
US trade balance is positive (negative).14 We then calculate the share of employment in export oriented and import competing sectors at the NAICS 2-digit level.15
We also check the results using the measures based on the NAICS 3- and 4-digit
levels and find that the main findings remain substantively unchanged.16 We repeat
this step for all trade bills in question.17 We also alternatively use the net export
employment share (Net Export Employment), calculated as the net difference
between Export Employment and Import Employment.
Figure 1 depicts the geographical variation in employment in export-oriented
and import-competing industries in each congressional district per trading partner.18 The top panel illustrates the variation in the shares of employment in industries with a trade surplus with regard to Australia (left) and in industries with a
trade deficit with Australia (right). The middle and bottom panels show theregional variation in trade-related employment with Colombia and South Korea as
trading partners, respectively. Comparing the figures for Australia, Colombia andSouth Korea demonstrates that regional interests in trade liberalization vary significantly depending on trade partner. For instance, Wyoming has more workers
employed in industries that compete with imports from Colombia (7.3%) than inindustries with a trade surplus vis-a-vis Colombia (4.1%), but the opposite patternis observed when we consider its trade relationship with South Korea (1.1% inimport competing and 10.4% in export-oriented industries). By using this partnerspecific measure, we capture the extent to which each district was expected to gainor lose specifically from the proposed trade agreement.
We also consider trade-related job losses as a supplementary measure ofimport competition in each district. Workers can apply for Trade Adjustment
Assistance (TAA), a program designed to compensate workers whose employment
has been harmed by trade-related competition. The number of TAA petitioners
can therefore capture the extent to which districts are exposed to import competition. While this is an imperfect proxy for import competition given that workers’ decisions to apply for TAA are shaped not only by import competition but
also by the political environment (Kim & Pelc, 2021a, 2021b), legislators representing districts with more TAA applications are likely to be more concerned
about economic losses related to the trade bills. We thus include the logged
number of workers who filed TAA petitions in a given year. Our district-level
data come from Kim and Pelc (2021b).
Estimation
Based on this collection of information, we estimate the following binary probit
model:19

2268

S. E. KIM AND J. YANG

Figure 1. Geographical variation in employment in export-oriented and import-competing Industries vis-a-vis
Australia (top), Colombia (middle) and South Korea (bottom).

ProbitðYi Þ ¼ a þ b1 ExportEmploymentijt þ b2 ImportEmploymentijt
þ b3 ExportEmploymentijt  Allyjt þ b4 ImportEmploymentijt  Allyjt
þ hControlsijt þ cj þ ci ,where Yijt is a binary variable coded 1 if a legislator from district i in year t voted
for the FTA bill with partner country j and 0 otherwise.20 For each district i inyear t, we include two indicators for economic interests related to the trade bill inquestion with partner country j: Export Employmentijt and Import Employmentijt.
We interact these variables with Allyjt because we are primarily interested in how
geopolitical concerns moderate the effects of economic interests. The constitutive
term for Ally, which is invariant across the legislators in a given bill, is omitted
because the fixed effects (cj) absorb it.
We also include a set of control variables following existing studies on the legislative voting on the trade issues (e.g., Milner & Tingley, 2011; Owen, 2017).
Specifically, we control for educational attainment (the percentage of the

REVIEW OF INTERNATIONAL POLITICAL ECONOMY

2269

population in the district with a college degree), the district’s economic characteristics (unemployment rate and the logarithmic value of the median income in each
district), legislator ideology (DW-Nominate scores), the influence of interest groups
on legislators (the logged amount of total political action committees (PAC) contributions to each legislator during the previous election cycle), a series of demographic variables, and binary indicators for the Midwest, the South and the Westto account for regional variation in voting patterns. Details on control variables arepresented in Appendix Section A2.
We expect b1 to be positive because a higher concentration of export-oriented
industries is likely to increase legislative support for the FTA. Conversely, we
expect b2 to be negative because a higher concentration of import-competing
industries would decrease legislative support for the FTA. Our primary parametersof interest are b3 and b4. We expect that the effects of economic concerns would
decrease when a legislator considers an FTA with an ally. As the US expects a positive security externality from an FTA with an ally, the effects of economic concerns
on legislative support for the FTA should decrease. We thus expect b3, the coefficient on the interaction term between Export Employment and Ally, to be negative
because the positive effect of export interests would be reduced. On the other
hand, b4 is expected to be positive because the negative effects of import interests
would be smaller when an FTA is signed with an ally.
We also estimate the same models by replacing Allyjt with Distance from US
Ideal Pointjt, the absolute distance between the US and a state j’s ideal points in agiven year t. Here, if the constituencies’ economic interests are moderated by geopolitical concerns, the interaction term between Distance from US Ideal Pointjt andExport Employmentijt (Import Employmentijt) is expected to have positive (negative)
coefficient, given that the higher value of Distance from US Ideal Pointjt represent
the less-aligned foreign policy preferences.

Findings
In this section, we present the main empirical findings that legislators are less sensitive to their constituents’ economic interests when considering trade agreementswith allies or countries with closely aligned interests. Next, we briefly demonstrate
the results from a battery of robustness checks.
Effects of the partner country’s geostrategic importance
Table 2 presents the estimation results. In Model (1), we begin by including themeasures of employment in export-oriented (Exp. Empl. Share) and import-competing sectors (Imp. Empl. Share) in the districts, as well as their interaction termswith an indicator for ally (Ally). We do not include the variable Ally independently
because we include fixed effects for each vote across the models. We also include
the logged number of workers who filed TAA claims as another proxy for traderelated job losses in the district and its interaction with Ally. In Model (2), we
include the measure of net employment share (Net. Empl. Share) and its interaction
with Ally, instead of two separate measures of export and import interests. We

2270

S. E. KIM AND J. YANG

Table 2. Probit estimation results on legislative roll-call votes on free trade agreements, 2003–2011.
(1)
Exp.Empl.ShareAlly
Imp.Empl.ShareAlly
Net.Empl.ShareAlly
Petition (logged, workers)Ally
Exp.Empl.ShareDistance from US ideal point0.053***(0.014)0.065***(0.023)0.220***(0.078)

Imp.Empl.ShareDistance from US ideal point
Net.Empl.ShareDistance from US ideal point
Petition (logged, workers)Distance from US ideal point
Export Industry Employment Percentage
Import Industry Employment Percentage

0.068***(0.012)
0.091***(0.019)Net Export Industry Employment Percentage
Petition (logged, workers)
Median Income (logged)
College Degree (%)
Unemployment Rate (%)
Foreign Born Population (%)
Black
Hispanic
FemaleDW Nominate
Total PAC Contribution (logged)
MidWestSouth
West
Observations
Pseudo R2

0.247***(0.061)
0.464***(0.168)0.022***(0.004)
0.045***(0.015)0.012***(0.003)0.060(0.095)0.023(0.111)
0.074(0.064)2.033***(0.071)0.128***(0.024)0.084(0.071)0.246***(0.068)0.281***(0.076)
4525
0.377

(2)

0.053***(0.014)0.234***(0.077)(3)

0.029***(0.008)
0.031*(0.017)
0.125**(0.051)
0.049**(0.022)0.040(0.049)(4)0.029***(0.008)
0.129**(0.051)

0.046**0.072***(0.012)(0.022)
0.264***
0.246
0.251
(0.060)(0.157)(0.156)
0.429***
0.454***
0.424**(0.166)(0.168)(0.166)0.023***
0.022***
0.022***(0.004)(0.004)(0.004)
0.043***
0.043***
0.041***(0.015)(0.015)(0.015)0.013***
0.012***
0.013***(0.003)(0.003)(0.003)
0.081
0.050
0.068
(0.095)(0.095)(0.095)
0.049
0.025
0.047
(0.111)(0.111)(0.111)
0.067
0.073
0.067(0.063)(0.064)(0.063)2.028***
2.030***
2.026***(0.071)(0.071)(0.070)0.131***
0.129***
0.131***(0.024)(0.024)(0.024)
0.073
0.085
0.075
(0.071)(0.071)(0.071)0.233***
0.245***
0.235***(0.067)(0.068)(0.067)0.272***
0.283***
0.274***(0.075)(0.076)(0.075)
4525
4525
4525
0.377
0.377
0.377

Robust standard errors in parentheses.
Bill fixed effects are included across all models.
p < 0.10, p < 0.05, p < 0.01.

estimate the same models in Models (3)–(4) except that we replace Ally withDistance from US Ideal Point to examine the effects of political relations in general.
The results indicate that geopolitical concerns indeed moderate the effects ofeconomic concerns on legislative voting on FTAs. Beginning with Model (1), we
find that the signs of the coefficients on the interaction terms are in the expected

REVIEW OF INTERNATIONAL POLITICAL ECONOMY

2271

Figure 2. Marginal effects of export industry employment share (top left), import industry employment share(top right) and petition (bottom) with 95% Confidence Intervals, conditional on whether the partner country
is an ally or not.

direction and statistically significant. While legislators from districts with more
employees in export (import) industries are more (less) likely to vote for an FTA
bill, as indicated by the coefficients on Export Employment and Import
Employment, the effects are less pronounced when the FTA is with a US ally.
Similarly, the number of workers who filed TAA petitions is negatively associatedwith the probability of voting for an FTA, indicated by the coefficient on TAA petitions, but the effects become smaller when the partner country in the FTA is a US
ally. The effects are similar when we consider Net Employment Share in Model (2).
As the coefficients from the probit models are not intuitive to interpret, we present the marginal effects of Export Employment, Import Employment, and TAA
Petitions separately for an FTA with an ally and a non-ally. Figure 2 illustrates thatthe marginal effects of economic concerns are indeed smaller when the FTA iswith an ally than with other countries. The first panel compares the marginal
effects of export employment on the probability of voting for an FTA. For the caseof an FTA with a non-ally, a one percent increase in employment in export-

2272

S. E. KIM AND J. YANG

Figure 3. Marginal Effects of Export Industry Employment Share (top left), Import Industry Em- ployment
Share (top right), and Petition (bottom) with 95% Confidence Intervals, Conditional on Distance from US
Ideal Points.

oriented industries in the district is associated with about a 2-percentage point
increase in the probability of supporting the FTA, which is about a 3 percent
increase from the average (65.5%). For the case of an FTA with an ally, the marginal effects of export employment are much smaller, barely statistically distinguishable from zero at the 95% confidence interval. The marginal effects of import
employment show the reverse. While a one percent increase in employment inimport-competing industries is associated with a decrease in the probability of voting for an FTA by about 3 percentage points for the case of an FTA with a nonally, the magnitude of such effects is smaller by about 1 percentage point for thecase of an FTA with an ally. We also find corroborating evidence from the analysis
of TAA petitions. Again, the marginal effects of TAA petitions are much more sizable for the case of an FTA with a non-ally than with an ally.
Turning to Models (3)–(4), we find similar results using the measure ofDistance from US Ideal Point. We find that the effects of economic concerns are
magnified when the trading partner country’s ideal point is further from the US
ideal point, as indicated by the positive coefficient on its interaction with
Exp.Empl.Share and the negative coefficient on its interaction with Imp.Empl.Share.
We again calculate the marginal effects to better illustrate the substantive effects ofdifferent economic concerns depending on foreign policy preferences. Figure 3
presents the simulated marginal effects of export employment share (top left),
import employment share (top right), and TAA petitions (bottom) across different
values of distance from the US ideal point. The figures clearly demonstrate that theeffects of export industry share significantly increase when considering an FTAREVIEW OF INTERNATIONAL POLITICAL ECONOMY

2273

Figure 4. Effects of export industry employment share (left), import industry employment share (middle), andpetition (right) for allies (top) and non-allies (bottom), respectively, with 95% Confidence Intervals. Note thatthe estimate for the import industry employment in Panama is not presented since there is no variation in
the share of employment in the import-competing industry with regard to Panama.

with countries whose foreign policy interests are further from those of the US.
Also, the negative effects of import competition, measured as import industry share
and TAA petitions, are amplified with an increase in the distance from the US
ideal point.
We also estimate separate regressions for each partner country to explore how
the effects of economic interests vary across different partner countries. In Figure
4, we plot the FTA-specific coefficients for the economic variables for allies andnon-allies, respectively, to check if the effects of economic interests are systematically different depending on geopolitical concerns. The results show that economic
interests tend to play a more important role when the FTA partner country is a
non-ally. For the non-ally partners, the coefficients for Export Employment, Import
Employment, and TAA Petitions are statistically distinguishable from 0 in almost all
estimations, and the signs correspond to the direction of the theoretical expectations. In contrast, we find weak evidence for the effects of economic variables in2274

S. E. KIM AND J. YANG

almost all the partners with military alliance. The coefficients are not statisticallysignificant in most cases, and the signs flip across the models for the allies.
Overall, the findings conform to the hypothesis that geopolitical factors moderate the effects of economic concerns on legislative trade preferences. While legislators are more (less) likely to vote for an FTA when their districts haveconcentrated interests in export-oriented (import-competing) industries vis-a-vis
their FTA partner, the effects of economic considerations are reduced when the US
considers expanding trade with an ally or a country that shares foreign policy interests.
Hence, we examine whether our findings are driven by democratic partners
given that the US tends to ally with another democratic country. While all of the
US allies in our sample are democratic countries, there is variation in the level of
democracy. We thus additionally control for a series of interaction variables
between a partner country’s democracy score and economic characteristics of
districts.21Our results presented in Tables A19–A23 are substantively similar to ourmain models. The sign of coefficients remains same although some variables
become less significant in part due to collinearity between our main independent
variables—Ally and Distance from US ideal point—and the Democracy indices.
The estimated coefficients on control variables also reveal notable patterns. First,
we find that the percentage of the population that is college-educated is positively
correlated with legislative support for trade agreements. As expected, legislators
representing districts with more high-skilled workers are more likely to vote for the
trade agreement. This is consistent with the findings reported by Milner andTingley (2011) and Owen (2017). While the district’s median income appears negative, this may be due to a collinearity between median income and college-educatedpopulation. Second, the negative coefficient on unemployment rate suggests that
economic downturn in the district reduces legislative support for free trade. Third,
the share of foreign-born population appears positive and statistically significant,which suggests that legislators tend to be more supportive of global engagement
when they are from districts with a large foreign-born population. Fourth, the coefficient on our liberal-conservative measure, DW Nominate, is positive and significant. Right-leaning legislators are more supportive of trade agreement due to theirbelief about the role of the government in the economy (Milner & Tingley, 2011).
Lastly, the influence from interest groups is also notable, as indicated by the positive and statistically significant coefficient on PAC contributions.
Robustness checks
We further conduct a series of robustness checks. First, we use alternative measuresof strategic importance. As the alliance status may not fully capture the variationof political and geostrategic importance for the US, we alternatively use the concentration of US troops in a given country. As presented in Table A4, our findings
remain robust to the use of this alternative indicator. We also alternatively use themeasure of a partner country’s voting similarity index with the US instead of theabsolute distance between the ideal points. We also utilize ‘the number of speeches
mentioning security’ in a given FTA deal as a measure of the partner’s security
importance.22 As presented in Figures A3 and A4, the results show substantively
similar findings.

REVIEW OF INTERNATIONAL POLITICAL ECONOMY

2275

Also, while our main estimations focus on the final-passage bills, which are‘substantive’ and better reflect legislators’ policy preferences and policy choices
than procedural votes, the procedural issues account for a significant share of thevoting behavior and can still have a significant influence on voting (Chaudoin,
Milner, & Tingley, 2010). In this regard, we estimate our main models by including
all types of votes for a given FTA bill.23 The results, presented in Table A5, showthat our main findings are unchanged. We also find that our main findings holdwhen estimating the models using the votes in the early stages of the process, suggesting that our main estimation results may simply reflect cheap talk or grandstanding by individual legislators who are unlikely to endanger final passage (Table
A6). Similarly, we find that the inclusion of abstention does not change our main
findings (Table A7).
In addition, to examine whether advocacy by president confound our main findings, we estimate our main models by controlling for an indicator for a presidential
copartisan (coded 1 if a legislator is a member of the president party). As shown in
Table A8, our main findings about the moderated effects of economic interests atthe constituency-level remain stable, suggesting that security concerns influencelegislative voting decisions regardless of the president’s foreign policy concerns.
Hence, to ensure that a specific partner country does not drive our main findings, we run our main estimation models by excluding each of the partner countries. The results, presented in Tables A9–A12, remain similar to our main results.
We also check the results using alternative model specifications. Specifically, we
include state fixed effects to account for unobservable heterogeneity across states
and also estimate linear probability models instead of probit models. Tables A13
and A14 demonstrate that our main results remain robust. We also include‘exposure to offshoring’ measure. Owen (2017) finds that the House ofRepresentatives whose constituencies are highly exposed to offshoring tend to
oppose free trade agreements.24 The results presented in Table A15 remain substantively similar to our main findings. We also find substantively the same findings when using an indicator for offshoring, instead of our measures of economic
interests (Table A16). In addition, we find that the estimations without control variables show the substantively same findings (Table A17). Moreover, we find thatthe main findings remain robust when we estimate clustered standard errors at thelegislator level (Table A18). Lastly, Table A24 shows that our main findings of themoderated effects of economic interests remain substantively the same when we
exclude the petition variable in the analysis.

Additional analysis using congressional speeches
We additionally examine congressional floor speeches to examine how legislators
discuss the logic of their support or opposition to different trade agreements.
While the roll-call vote is important in its own right, the vote is a simplification oflegislative preferences. We thus examine congressional speeches on FTAs in orderto determine the reasons why legislators took the position they did on different
trade agreements. This exercise is important especially because our roll-call voteanalysis does not allow us to explore whether geopolitical factors actually shaped
legislative positions on a given FTA. One important caveat of the analysis of legislative speeches is that such information is only available for a small subset of

2276

S. E. KIM AND J. YANG

legislators who gave floor speeches on FTAs: only 8.8% of legislators on averagegave floor speeches on trade agreements under our examination. Such a small sample size impedes reliable estimates of the interactive effects between economic
interests and geopolitical considerations on the contents of speeches on trade
agreements. In this regard, we aim to explore whether geopolitical factors actuallyshaped legislative positions on a given FTA.25 Specifically, we investigate whether
legislators consider security-related benefits of trade agreements and invoke thislogic in floor speeches by analyzing floor speeches on all the FTAs within ourperiod of study by all members of the House.
We collected all remarks on the floor by members of the House that contained
the words “FTA” or “free trade agreement,” and identified speeches that were specific to the eleven FTAs under examination. This resulted in a collection of 405
individual speeches delivered by 188 legislators. We manually read all the collectedspeeches and coded whether each speech discussed the security benefits of free
trade agreements. We determined that a speech mentioned the security benefits
when the legislator mentioned that the FTA served US national security or diplomatic interests. For instance, the statements classified as related to security benefits
include a remark by Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen: “[P]assage of this free
trade agreement [with South Korea] will serve as a clear demonstration of ourenduring commitment to our ally South Korea … ”26 or the remark byRepresentative Gwen Moore on the trade agreements with Singapore and Chile:“Perhaps most importantly, however, trade liberalization provides our nation withan additional diplomatic tool and a forum within which our nation may deal withinternational disputes and/or coalition building. Trade’s national security component cannot be understated.”27
With this data classified, we construct the speaker-partner-year level. We only
include those legislators who gave floor speeches at least once for any of the eleven
FTAs. With speaker from district i, trading partner j and year j as the unit of analysis, we estimate the following model:
ProbitðYi Þ ¼ a þ b1 Allyijt þ hControlsijt þ cj þ Ei ,where Yijt is a binary variable coded 1 if a legislator from district i in year t discussed the security benefits of the FTA with a partner country j and 0 otherwise.
Our main variable of interest is Allyjt because we are interested in whether legislators are more likely to mention the security benefits of an FTA with an ally. We
replace Allyjt with Distance from US Ideal Pointjt in some models to examine theeffects of foreign policy similarities. We include other control variables as well as
fixed effects for the year or congressional session depending on the models (cj).
Table 3 presents the results. The findings suggest that legislators are more likely
to discuss the security benefits of an FTA when the trade partner in question is a
US ally (Models 1–2) or when the partner country’s policy preferences are similar
to those of the US (Models 3–4). The results show that legislators indeed are more
likely to refer to the security externality logic to justify their support for an FTA
when the agreement is with allies or countries that share geopolitical interests.28 As
legislators may use the security benefit logic when they prefer an FTA for othereconomic or ideological reasons, we control for economic and demographic factors,
which ensures that our effects are not driven by other economic factors.

REVIEW OF INTERNATIONAL POLITICAL ECONOMY

2277

Table 3. Probit model estimation results using speaker-year level setup. Dependent variable is a binary indicator of whether a given speaker mentioned security benefits in the speech.

Ally

(1)
Sec. Ben(2)
Sec. Ben

0.841***(0.156)0.837***(0.149)0.044**(0.020)0.007(0.032)
0.046(0.084)
1.339**(0.542)0.026*(0.014)
0.099*(0.056)0.035***(0.009)0.155(0.221)
0.253(0.464)
0.422*(0.229)1.049***(0.283)0.267***(0.097)
0.281(0.310)0.061(0.164)
0.431*(0.249)1.798***(0.180)0.839***(0.113)386
0.284

0.047**(0.019)
0.014(0.030)0.045(0.082)
1.365***(0.523)0.027*(0.014)
0.100*(0.056)
0.036***(0.009)0.151(0.218)
0.235(0.455)
0.429*(0.228)1.062***(0.277)
0.266***(0.096)
0.286(0.303)
0.057(0.164)
0.431*(0.245)
1.897***(0.166)0.882***(0.118)392
0.287

Distance from US ideal point
Export Industry Employment Percentage
Import Industry Employment Percentage
Petition (logged, workers)
Median Income (logged)
College Degree (%)
Unemployment Rate (%)
Foreign Born Population (%)
Black
Hispanic
FemaleDW Nominate
Total PAC Contribution (logged)
MidWest
South
West
MENA
Asia / Oceania
Observations
Pseudo R2(3)
Sec. Ben(4)
Sec. Ben0.806***(0.114)0.044**(0.020)0.006(0.033)
0.045(0.084)
1.355**(0.542)0.027*(0.014)
0.099*(0.056)0.035***(0.009)0.152(0.223)
0.254(0.464)
0.417*(0.230)1.051***(0.284)0.271***(0.097)
0.286(0.312)
0.058(0.163)
0.431*(0.248)2.168***(0.189)0.103**(0.047)386
0.284

0.488***(0.075)0.047**(0.019)
0.014(0.030)0.041(0.083)
1.360***(0.524)0.028*(0.014)
0.098*(0.056)0.035***(0.009)0.147(0.218)
0.221(0.456)
0.437*(0.228)1.062***(0.277)
0.271***(0.096)
0.277(0.306)
0.048(0.165)
0.418*(0.243)1.684***(0.104)0.247**(0.116)392
0.286

Robust standard errors cluster at the partner country level in parentheses.
p < 0.10, p < 0.05, p < 0.01.

Conclusion
We revisited the literature on the security externality by examining how geopolitical concerns shape legislative preferences with regard to trade policy. Our findings
demonstrate that legislators are less (more) concerned about a trade agreement’s
economic effects on their districts when they consider an agreement with allies(non-allies). While national security considerations do not prevail over economic
interests, they moderate the effects of economic considerations on legislative voting
decisions. Our analysis further demonstrated that legislators discuss the security
implications of free trade agreements in their congressional speeches. The results
are in line with Carnegie and Gaikwad’s (2022) findings that citizens prefer
expanding trade with allies to expanding trade with adversaries. Our findings

2278

S. E. KIM AND J. YANG

suggest that such preferences are observed among legislators as well. As the average
voter is more supportive of trade deals with allies, allies are also more supportiveof such trade agreements and less concerned about the concentrated economic interests.
Our findings call for more attention to how legislators take into account thecharacteristics of trade partners. While previous studies on legislators’ trade preferences have mostly focused on their ideology or constituents’ economic interests(Milner & Tingley, 2011; Owen, 2017), we demonstrate that the effects of ideology
or constituent’s economic interests depend on the heterogenous characteristics oftrade partners and trade deals. Also, our findings underscore the important variation in economic interests regarding free trade deals. Whether a given industry
wins or loses from trade deals depends on the trade partner in question and thedesign of the trade agreement. We consider industry-level trade surplus vis-a-vis
trade partners in calculating the district-level economic interests, which better captures the effects of trade deals compared to the measure of skill endowment. While
trade surplus can be a good proxy for determining the expected effects of trade
agreements on a given industry, further consideration of trade agreement design,
such as the degree of trade liberalization across industries and trade partners,
would better capture the difference in economic interests regarding
trade agreements.
Beyond geopolitical concerns, the partner country-level variable may affect legislative preferences toward trade deals. For instance, legislators may become moreconcerned about a partner country’s labor rights when signing a free trade agreement with labor right provisions if the partner has a relatively low level of labor
standards. The effects of such concerns may also appear differently across legislators depending on their ideology and the pressure from labor in their constituencies. We suggest future research examine how the different characteristics of thepartner for the FTA interact with district-level or the legislator-level factors inshaping legislators’ preferences for free trade.
Our study is also closely related with the literature on the effects of economic
considerations on legislators’ foreign policy support. Kleinberg and Fordham(2013) found that legislators are more likely to support a harmonious foreign policy toward China when their districts have extensive trade ties with China.
Similarly, Cutrone and Fordham (2010) found that legislators were more likely toraise concerns about human rights of foreign countries that produce goods competing with products from their home districts. As foreign policy concerns are also
partly endogenous to constituents’ economic interests, one important avenue for
future research is to examine how foreign policy concerns and constituents’ economic interests influence each other in shaping legislative decisions on foreign
security and economic policy.
Our findings offer important insights into the political economy of trade liberalization beyond the US. We demonstrate that political elites consider the national
security implications of trade deals, which moderates the effects of economic considerations of their constituents. Yet, there is an important scope condition. Our
argument is applicable to contexts where national security concerns are importantforeign policy considerations. Within this scope condition, we expect that a similar
pattern can be observed in other democratic countries where trade deals areauthorized through the legislative body. While majoritarian electoral systems are

REVIEW OF INTERNATIONAL POLITICAL ECONOMY

2279

associated with a more protectionist trade policy (Evans, 2009; Fredriksson,
Matschke, & Minier, 2011; Grossman & Helpman, 2005), our findings suggest thatthe effects of economic interests may get weaker when political elites consider tradeliberalization with allies.
This study also underscores that legislators are not mere “agents” of constituents’ economic interests when it comes to national security considerations. Beyond
calculating the likely effects of economic interests on their constituents, they consider the geopolitical implications of economic policy. With intensifying strategiccompetition with China, policy makers call for the US’s economic restrictions
against the rising power while further economically engaging with its allies. While
it is still debated whether the US should adopt an economic containment policy
against China (Kim, 2021; Norris, 2016), an increasing attention to security implications of trade policy vis-a-vis China and other countries in East Asia is likely to
reduce the importance of local economic interests related to trade policy relative tothat of broader geostrategic implications.
More broadly, our paper also adds to the literature on legislative voting on foreign policy issues. While presidents typically have considerable control over foreign
policy-making processes (Bailey, Goldstein, & Weingast, 1997; Canes-Wrone,
Howell, & Lewis, 2008), legislative support is still necessary for policy implementation, and legislators have their own foreign policy preferences. In particular, aplethora of research has shown that the material interests of constituencies play a
crucial role in shaping legislators’ positions on foreign policy issues (e.g., Hiscox,
2002; Ladewig, 2006). Our study suggests that legislators’ consideration of theirconstituents’ interests when voting on a foreign policy issue does not occur in isolation but also takes into account externalities with regard to other foreign policy
objectives. This finding also echoes the calls for an integrated framework that
accounts for the relationships between different policy options to better understandforeign policy making (Milner & Tingley, 2011; Palmer, Wohlander, &Morgan, 2002).

Notes
1. David Nakamura and Steven Mufson, “Some Administration Officials Defend Trade
Pact as National Security Policy,” The Washington Post, May 18, 2015.
2. Representative Meeks (NY). “Providing for Consideration of Senate Amendment to
H.R. 2832, Extending The Generalized System of Preference; Providing for
Consideration of H.R. 3078, United States-Colombia Trade Promotion Agreement
Implementation Act; Providing for Consideration of H.R. 3079, United States-Panama
Trade Promotion Agreement Implementation Act; And Providing for Considerationof H.R. 3080, United States-Korea Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act.”
Congressional Record 157: 151 (October 11, 2011), p. H6710.
3. For example, President Clinton strategically linked security concerns to the North
America Free Trade Agree ment to mitigate opposition from Democratic legislators(Magee, 2010; Milner & Tingley, 2011). More recently, President Obama publicly
mentioned the strategic importance of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) for
national security when advocating for its acceptance. See the White House blog post,“Why President Obama’s Trade Deal Matters to U.S. National Security” https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/blog/2016/05/04/why-president-obamas-trade-dealmatters-us-national-security.

2280

S. E. KIM AND J. YANG

4. While our primary interest lies at examining the interactive effects, we present theresults on the independent effects of ally on voting behavior in Table A3 in the
supplementary appendix. The results show that legislators are more likely to vote for
the FTA with allies than with non-allies, controlling for other country-level factors.
5. The Stolper-Samuelson model predicts that owners of relatively scarce factors of
production lose from trade. The Ricardo-Viner model assumes that factors of
production may not be mobile, and thus predicts that individuals employed inimport-competing sectors, relative to export-oriented sectors, oppose tradeliberalization.
6. Indeed, a host of empirical studies find evidence consistent with this prediction. For
instance, Milner and Tingley (2011) finds that legislators representing districts with
abundant human capital are more likely to vote for trade. Baldwin and Magee’s(2000) analysis of legislative voting finds that legislators were more likely to vote fortrade liberalization when their districts had a higher ratio of workers in exportoriented versus import-competing industries.
7. This also implies that legislators may be able to win voters’ approval of their trade
policy more easily when expanding trade with allies.
8. It is noteworthy that legislators may also have a greater incentive to pay off theeconomic losers or opposing groups in their districts in some ways when there are
security benefits associated with a trade agreement. This, again, suggests themoderating effects of positive ’security externalities.
9. Alternatively, one may consider the possibility that legislators strategically use security
concerns as an excuse: legislators may seek to justify their trade deal support(opposition) by emphasizing security benefits (costs) to appease the import (export)
industry in their constituencies. If so, however, we will find evidence that the importand export industries’ influences on legislative support are asymmetrically changed
depending on whether the partner is an ally or non-ally. If the partner is an ally
(non-ally), the effects of the import (export) industry will be moderated while thoseof the export (import) industry will be magnified. Instead, our theory predicts thatboth import and export industries’ influence are only moderated when the partnershares common security interests.
10. We also exclude the bills on the renegotiated trade agreements such as the UnitedStates-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA). As we consider how each trade billbrings a significant change on import-competing and exportoriented industries acrossdistricts, we focus on the implementation of newly proposed trade agreements. The
USMCA, as a replacement of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA),
retained most of the NAFTA’s market opening measures while introducing newchanges such as auto rules of origin, dispute settlement provisions, and intellectual
property rights protection (Villarreal & Fergusson, 2019). In order to make theanalysis comparable across different trade bills, we focus on the implementation of
the original trade agreements throughout the analysis.
11. We examined the period from 2000 to 2019, but our final dataset is restricted to theyears 2003 to 2011 because other years did not have any relevant roll-call votes on
FTAs. The PIPC Roll Call Datasets do not provide information on issue classification
for the year 2013. We thus manually reviewed all roll-call votes in that year that
included the keyword ‘trade’ in the title, but no relevant roll-call was identified.
12. The all partner countries in the DR-CAFTA are also members of the Organization ofAmerican States, which aims to strengthen the peace and security of the continent as
one of primary goals.
13. We focus on industry-based measure to capture trade relationship between
congressional districts and specific partner countries. As trade agreements are
partner-specific, we need to consider each district’s import competition or exportorientation vis-a-vis the specific trade partners in question. Other measures such as
the China shock or education cannot capture such partner-specific economic
considerations. We nonetheless ensure that our results remain robust to the use ofalternative economic indicators that better account for the exposure to global value

REVIEW OF INTERNATIONAL POLITICAL ECONOMY

14.
15.
16.
17.

18.
19.
20.
21.

22.

23.

24.
25.

26.
27.
28.

2281

chains, by interacting ally with TAA petitions and vulnerability to offshoring (Table
A16 in Appendix.)
The NAICS-level trade data for each partner come from the USA Trade Online
database, provided by the U.S. Census Bureau.
For industry-level employment, we use the County Business Patterns data from theUnited States Census Bureau.
The estimation results based on the NAICS 3- and 4-digit levels are presented inAppendix Figures A5 - A8.
When there are multiple trading partners considered in the trade bill as in the case of
the DR-CAFTA, we use the aggregated volume of import and the aggregated volume
of export.
We present the corresponding figures for the rest of the trading partners in Figures
A1 and A2 in the appendix.
We rely on the similar model specifications that existing studies on the legislative
voting on trade bills have used (e.g., Milner & Tingley, 2011; Owen, 2017).
In our main estimations, we do not include abstention. Still, as a robustness check,we estimate the models including abstention (coded as 0).
We use the 5 different Democracy Index from the V-Dem Dataset, namely
Deliberative Democracy Index, Egalitarian Democracy Index, Liberal Democracy
Index, Electoral Democracy Index, and Participatory Democracy Index (Coppedge
et al., 2021; Pemstein et al., 2018).
Our main estimations do not rely on ‘the number of speeches mentioning security’ ina given FTA deal as a specification to capture the geostrategic importance of thepartner country, given thatlegislators can frequently but strategically bring security
issues multiple times to draw support for the FTA deal, which does not necessarilyreflect the geostrategic importance of the partner country.
Specifically, we include not only final-passage votes but also all the procedural votesfor ‘motion to recommit,’ ‘motion to table,’ and ‘previous question on special rules’
that are voted for the FTA bills from 2003 to 2011.
We employ the offshorability variable from Owen (2017).
Still, we estimate the models with the interaction terms between the distance from US
ideal point. The results,
presented in Figure A9, suggest the moderated effects of economic interests—
particularly of the measure of the import competition (industry employment
percentage).
Representative Ros-Lehtinen (FL). “United States-Korea Free Trade Agreement
Implementation Act.” Congressional Record 157:151 (October 11, 2011), p. H6758.
Representative Moore (WI). “United States-Chile Free Trade Agreement
Implementation Act.” Congressional Record 108:1 (July 24, 2003), p. H7459.’
Noticeably, the results also suggest that the legislators are more likely to mention
security benefits when their districts are positively affected by the trade agreement, asshown by the positive coefficient on Export Industry Employment Percentage. We alsofind that the signs of coefficients on Import Industry Employment Percentage andPetition (logged, workers) are positive although they are just shy of statisticalsignificance at conventional levels. This suggests that a representative from a district
that is negatively affected by the trade agreement are less likely to speak about thenational security benefits. Yet, the results do not consider any partner-level variation,
which may moderate the effects of economic concerns.

Acknowledgements
We thank Taegyun Lim, Guanwen Qiu, Gloria Shen for their excellent research assistance. We arealso grateful to Haeyong Lim for providing helpful comments. We are also grateful to Haeyong
Lim for providing helpful comments. Sung Eun Kim thanks Korea University for support for this2282

S. E. KIM AND J. YANG

research (K2210951). Joonseok Yang thanks the Ministry of Education of the Republic of Korea
and the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF-2020S1A3A2A02092791) for support forthis research.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Funding
Sung Eun Kim thanks Korea University for support for this research (K2210951). Joonseok Yang
thanks the Ministry of Education of the Republic of Korea and the National Research Foundationof Korea (NRF- 2020S1A3A2A02092791) for support for this research.

Notes on contributors
Sung Eun Kim is an associate professor of political science and international relations at Korea
University. She specializes in international political economy, with a focus on trade politics andprotectionism.
Joonseok Yang is an assistant professor in the Department of Political Science & Diplomacy at
Sungkyunkwan University, Seoul, South Korea. His research concentrates on comparative andinternational political economy.

ORCID
Sung Eun Kim
Joonseok Yang

http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6799-4343
http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2895-6365

References
Aldrich, J. H., Gelpi, C., Feaver, P., Reifler, J., & Sharp, K. T. (2006). Foreign policy and the electoral connection. Annual Review of Political Science, 9(1), 477–502. https://doi.org/10.1146/
annurev.polisci.9.111605.105008
Bailey, M. (2001). Quiet influence: The representation of diffuse interests on trade policy, 198394. Legislative Studies Quarterly, 26(1), 45. https://doi.org/10.2307/440403
Bailey, M. A. (2003). The politics of the difficult: Congress, public opinion, and early cold war aid
and trade policies. Legislative Studies Quarterly, 28(2), 147–177. https://doi.org/10.3162/
036298003X200845
Bailey, M. A., Goldstein, J., & Weingast, B. R. (1997). The institutional roots of American trade
policy: Politics, coalitions, and international trade. World Politics, 49(3), 309–338. https://doi.
org/10.1353/wp.1997.0007
Bailey, M. A., Strezhnev, E., & Voeten, A. (2017). Estimating dynamic state preferences from
United Nations voting data. Journal of Conflict Resolution, 61(2), 430–456. https://doi.org/10.
1177/0022002715595700
Baldwin, R. E., & Magee, C. S. (2000). Is trade policy for sale? Congressional voting on recent
trade bills. Public Choice, 105(1/2), 79–101. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1005121716315
Busch, M. L., & Reinhardt, E. (2000). Geography, international trade, and political mobi- lizationin U.S. industries. American Journal of Political Science, 44(4), 703. https://doi.org/10.2307/
2669276
Canes-Wrone, B., Howell, D. E., & Lewis, W. G. (2008). Toward a broader under- standing ofpresidential power: A reevaluation of the two presidencies thesis. The Journal of Politics, 70(1),1–16. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022381607080061
Carnegie, A., & Gaikwad, N. (2022). Public opinion on geopolitics and trade: Theory and evidence. World Politics, 74(2), 167–204. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0043887121000265

REVIEW OF INTERNATIONAL POLITICAL ECONOMY

2283

Chaudoin, S., Milner, D. H., & Tingley, H. V. (2010). The center still holds: Liberal internationalism survives. International Security, 35(1), 75–94. https://doi.org/10.1162/ISEC_a_00003
Coppedge, M., J., Gerring, C. H., Knutsen, S. I., Lindberg, J., Teorell, N-i., Alizada, D., Altman,
M., Bernhard, A., Cornell, M. S., Fish, L., Gastaldi, H., Gjerløw, A., Glynn, A., Hicken, G.,
Hindle, N., Ilchenko, J., Krusell, A., Luhrmann, S. F., Maerz, S., Marquardt, K., L., … Ziblatt,D. (2021). ‘V-Dem Dataset v11’ Varieties of Democracy Project. https://doi.org/10.23696/
vdems21
Crespin, M. H., & Rohde, D. (2019). Political institutions and public choice roll- call database.
https://ou.edu/carlalbertcenter/research/pipc-votes/.
Cutrone, E. A., & Fordham, B. O. (2010). Commerce and imagination: The sources of concern
about international human rights in the US Congress. International Studies Quarterly, 54(3),633–655. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2478.2010.00603.x
Davis, C. L., & Pratt, T. (2021). The forces of attraction: How security interests shape membershipin economic institutions. The Review of International Organizations, 16(4), 903–929. https://doi.
org/10.1007/s11558-020-09395-w
DiGiuseppe, M,, & Kleinberg, K. B. (2019). Economics, security, and individual-level preferences
for trade agreements. International Interactions, 45(2), 289–315. https://doi.org/10.1080/
03050629.2019.1551007
Evans, C. L. (2009). A protectionist bias in majoritarian politics: An empirical investigation.
Economics & Politics, 21(2), 278–307. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-0343.2009.00346.x
Fredriksson, P. G., Matschke, X., & Minier, J. (2011). Trade policy in majoritarian systems: thecase of the U.S. ” Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue Canadienne D’economique, 44(2),607–626. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-5982.2011.01646.x
Gibler, D. M. (2009). International military alliances, 1648–2008. (v4.1). CQ Press.
Glick, R., & Taylor, A. M. (2010). Collateral damage: Trade disruption and the economic impact ofwar. Review of Economics and Statistics, 92(1), 102–127. https://doi.org/10.1162/rest.2009.12023
Gowa, J. (1994). Allies, adversaries, and international trade. Princeton University Press.
Gowa, J., & Edward, D. M. (1993). Power politics and international trade. American Political
Science Review, 87(2), 408–420. https://doi.org/10.2307/2939050
Grossman, G. M, & Helpman, E. (2005). A protectionist bias in majoritarian politics. The
Quarterly
Journalof
Economics,
120(4),
1239–1282.
https://doi.org/10.1162/
003355305775097498
Guisinger, A. (2009). Determining trade policy: Do voters hold politicians accountable?
International Organization, 63(3), 533–557. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0020818309090183
Hiscox, M. J. (2002). Commerce, coalitions, and factor mobility: Evidence from congres- sional
votes on trade legislation. American Political Science Review, 96(3), 593–608. https://doi.org/10.
1017/S0003055402000357
Keshk, O. M. G., Pollins, B. M., & Reuveny, R. (2004). Trade still follows the flag: The primacy ofpolitics in a simultaneous model of interdependence and armed conflict. The Journal of
Politics, 66(4), 1155–1179. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.0022-3816.2004.00294.x
Kim, D. J. (2017). Trading with the enemy? The futility of US commercial countermeasuresagainst the Chinese challenge. The Pacific Review, 30(3), 289–308. https://doi.org/10.1080/
09512748.2016.1249907
Kim, D. J. (2021). A case for geoeconomic restraint: Offensive realism and the inflated threat ofChinese economic initiatives. Geopolitics, 26(5), 1421–1441. https://doi.org/10.1080/14650045.
2020.1719071
Kim, S. E., & Pelc, K. (2021a). How responsive is trade adjustment assistance? Political Science
Research and Methods, 9(4), 889–898. https://doi.org/10.1017/psrm.2020.38
Kim, S. E., & Pelc, K. J. (2021b). Trade competition and worker compensation: Why do somereceive more than others? International Studies Quarterly, 65(1), 109–121. https://doi.org/10.
1093/isq/sqaa090
Kleinberg, K. B., & Fordham, B. O. (2013). The domestic politics of trade and conflict.
International Studies Quarterly, 57(3), 605–619. https://doi.org/10.1111/isqu.12016
Ladewig, J. W. (2006). Domestic influences on international trade policy: factor mobility in the
United States, 1963 to 1992 (pp. 69–103). International Organization.

2284

S. E. KIM AND J. YANG

Lee, D. S., & Kim, S. E. (2011). Ties that bind? Assessing the impact of economic interdependence
on East Asian alliances. Pacific Focus, 26(2), 206–235. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1976-5118.2011.
01063.x
Long, A. G. (2008). Bilateral trade in the shadow of armed conflict. International Studies
Quarterly, 52(1), 81–101. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2478.2007.00492.x
Magee, C. S. P. (2010). Would NAFTA have been approved by the House of Representatives
under President Bush? Presidents, parties, and trade policy. Review of International Economics,
18(2), 382–395. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9396.2010.00871.x
Mansfield, E. D., & Bronson, R. (1997). Alliances, preferential trading arrangements, and international trade. American Political Science Review, 91(1), 94–107. https://doi.org/10.2307/
2952261
Milner, H. (1988). Trading places: Industries for free trade. World Politics, 40(3), 350–376. https://doi.org/10.2307/2010217
Milner, H. V., & Tingley, D. H. (2011). Who supports global economic engagement? The sourcesof preferences in American foreign economic policy. International Organization, 65(1), 37–68.
https://doi.org/10.1017/S0020818310000317
Morrow, J. D., Siverson, R. M., & Tabares, T. E. (1998). The political determinants of international trade: The major powers. American Political Science Review, 92(3), 649–661. https://doi.org/10.2307/2585487
Norris, W. J. (2016). Chinese economic statecraft: Commercial actors, grand strategy, and state control. Cornell University Press.
Osgood, I. (2018). Globalizing the supply chain: Firm and industrial support for US trade agreements. International Organization, 72(2), 455–484. https://doi.org/10.1017/S002081831800005X
Osgood, I. (2022). Representation and reward: the left-wing anti-globalization alliance, contributions, and the congress. Review of International Political Economy, 1–26. https://doi.org/10.
1080/09692290.2022.2077803
Owen, E. (2017). Exposure to offshoring and the politics of trade liberalization: Debate and votes
on free trade agreements in the US House of Representatives. International Studies Quarterly,61(2), 297–311. https://doi.org/10.1093/isq/sqx020
Palmer, G., Wohlander, S. B., & Morgan, T. C. (2002). Give or take: Foreign aid and foreign policy substitutability. Journal of Peace Research, 39(1), 5–26. https://doi.org/10.1177/
0022343302039001001
Pemstein, D., Marquardt, K. L., Tzelgov, E., Ting Wang, Y., Krusell, J., & Miri, F. (2018). The VDem measurement model: Latent variable analysis for cross-national and cross-temporal expertcoded data (V-Dem Working Paper 2018:21). https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3167764
Pollins, B. M. (1989). Conflict, cooperation, and commerce: The effect of international politicalinteractions on bilateral trade flows. American Journal of Political Science, 33(3), 737. https://doi.org/10.2307/2111070
Rho, S., & Tomz, M. (2017). Why don’t trade preferences reflect economic self- interest?
International Organization, 71(S1), S85–S108. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0020818316000394
Rickard, S. J. (2018). Spending to win: Political institutions. Economic geography, and government
subsidies. Cambridge University Press.
Russett, B., & Oneal, J. (2001). Triangulating peace: Democracy. Interdependence, and internationalorganizations. W. W. Norton & Company.
Schultz, K. A. (2015). Borders, conflict, and trade. Annual Review of Political Science, 18(1),
125–145. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-polisci-020614-095002
Seo, J. (2015). Security ties or electoral connections? The US Congress and the Korea-US Free
Trade Agreement, 2007-2011. International Relations of the Asia-Pacific, 15(2), 217–243.
https://doi.org/10.1093/irap/lcu024
Theriault, S. M. (2008). Party polarization in congress. Cambridge University Press.
Verdier, D. (1995). Democracy and international trade: Britain, France, and the United States,
1860-1990. Princeton University Press.
Villarreal, M. A., & Fergusson, I. F. (2019). NAFTA renegotiation and the proposed UnitedStates-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA). Congressional Research Service, 26, 1–49.