Papers presented by Ryan Haddad since 2019
2023 Detroit, MI, United States
"National Security Protectionism: The Case of the U.S. Machine Tools Industry in the 1950s"
Ryan Haddad, University of Maryland
Abstract:
According to the political scientist I.M. Destler, protectionism in U.S. trade policy endured against a broader liberalizing tide in international trade during the second half of the 20th Century because its costs were asymmetrical to trade’s benefits and concentrated—that is, industries hurt by foreign competition tended more easily garner political support for their position because the costs in their local communities were comparatively more visible and steeper than the apparent gains. But national security protectionism was an exception to this dynamic. When the U.S. government sought to preserve its Cold War technological advantages by restricting the exports from critical sectors, the concentrated interests of those industries was insufficient to alter policy. This paper will show this dynamic using the case of the machine tools industry in the 1950s. It will explain the dynamics that made national security protectionism in this era distinct from more traditional forms based on tariffs, quotas, etc. It will document the appeals of the tools industry to the U.S. government, as well as the lack of resonance that these appeals had on the Executive Branch and the Congress.
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2020 Charlotte, North Carolina
"Money between Friends: Canadian-American Foreign Direct Investment Controversies in the Diefenbaker Era"
Ryan Haddad, University of Maryland
Abstract:
After World War II, American foreign direct investment into Canada exploded such that half of Canadian industry was American-owned by the early 1960s. Despite generally amicable relations between the two countries, this issue inspired a Canadian nationalist backlash that complicated bilateral comity. Championed by Prime Minister John Diefenbaker, whose “Canada First” rhetoric transformed Canadian politics, American ownership of Canada-based firms became an important national security issue in the late 1950s. At the same time, the United States similarly worried that American foreign investment would undercut its efforts to wage the Cold War, allowing American firms to shift business abroad to circumvent its economic statecraft efforts, especially toward China and Cuba. With both sides recognizing that American foreign investment conveyed benefits, they also acknowledged the necessity of making accommodations to keep the relationship on track. This paper considers the pivotal role played by Canadian Conservative Prime Minister John Diefenbaker in elevating economic nationalism—a theme that would be picked up by subsequent prime ministers irrespective of party. It will discuss how this nationalism circumscribed American Cold War economic statecraft in spite of the significant and unfavorable economic and power asymmetries between the two countries—a subject plumbed in the transatlantic context by the European revisionist school of Cold War history, but under-developed in the North American context. And it will consider what impact economic nationalism had on American firms seeking to invest in Canada.