This paper identifies recurrent patterns in the political activity of American corporations that support trade. These firms have made public coalitions a central element of their pro-trade activities, and their collective efforts vastly outstrip those of trade's corporate opponents. This superiority in organization is paired with dramatically greater volumes of lobbying and campaign contributions. I explain these striking divergences by integrating collective action theory into a firm-centred model of trade politics: the heavy concentration of gains from trade among a small number of firms makes both individual and collective political action easier for pro-trade firms than for producers opposed to trade. This explanation is supported in panel analysis of firms’ participation in pro-trade coalitions, which shows that size, multinationality, and heterogeneity in global networks of production and sales drive participation in pro-trade groups. Globally engaged firms have supported trade by matching pro-trade preferences with highly organized political action.

Using a panel data of S&P 500 Index firms covering 1998–2004, this paper compares the determinants of lobbying expenditures and campaign contributions and estimates the returns to lobbying as assessed by the financial market. Lobbying depends more on managerial incentives and protection needs beyond industry structures than contributions do. Lobbying also has a positive effect on the firm's equity returns relative to the market and, to a lesser degree, relative to its industry.