Trade Threats, Trade Wars: Bargaining, Retaliation, and American Coercive Diplomacy. By Ka Zeng. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2004. 324p. $57.50.

This book examines bilateral U.S. trade diplomacy during the 1980s and early 1990s. Ka Zeng advances (and generally sustains) an important thesis: that in trade disputes, U.S. policy has been tougher and more effective toward advanced industrial democracies (Europe, Japan) than nondemocratic nations (esp. China). The reason, she argues, lies in the structure of the economic relationships. Trade between the United States and the democracies is largely “competitive,” with industries and sectors going head-to-head for markets. The trade pattern with autocracies (and less-advanced economies like India and Brazil) is more “complementary,” with imports from these countries largely in product areas U.S. producers have abandoned.