Law Commons^™

Trade's Mini-Deals, Kathleen Claussen

Articles

The modern consensus is that U.S. trade law is made through statute and through large congressional-executive agreements, both of which maintain Congress' constitutional primacy over the regulation of foreign commerce. Contrary to this understanding, however, short, targeted agreements negotiated by the U.S. executive with foreign trading partners - recently referred to as "mini-deals" - have become a fixture of the trade law landscape over the last three decades in staggering number. More than 1,200 such agreements govern the movement of goods and services in and out of the United States from and to 130 countries. Such deals are not only …