The SMU Tower Center would like to invite you to the Sun & Star Lecture: Walking Out: America’s New Trade Policy in the Asia-Pacific and Beyond.

Date: Tuesday, April 29, 2025

Time: 12:00 – 1:30 p.m.

11:30 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. Registration and Reception

12:00 – 1:30 p.m. Event

Location: HT Chamber, Ground Floor, Hughes-Trigg Student Center, 3140 Dyer St, Dallas, TX  75205

The event is free and open to the public. Registration is required and the seats are first come, first served. Please click below for registration.

From tariff wars to torn-up trade agreements, Michael Beeman explores America's recent and dramatic turn away from support for freer, rules-based trade to instead go its own new way. Focusing on America's trade engagements in the Asia-Pacific, he contrasts the trade policy choices made by America's leaders over several generations with those of today–decisions that are now undermining the trading system America created and triggering new tensions between America and its trading partners, allies and adversaries alike. With keen insight as a former senior U.S. trade official, Beeman argues that America's exceptionally deep political divisions are driving its policy reversals, giving rise to a new trade policy characterized by zero-sum beliefs about the kind of trade America wants with the world and about new rules for trade that it wants for itself. With enormous implications for the future of regional and global trade, this timely analysis unravels the implications of America's seismic shift in approach for the future of the rules-based trading order and America's role in it. Walking Out is essential reading for anyone interested in the domestic and international political economy of trade, international relations, and the future of America's role in the global economy.

Featuring:

Michael L. Beeman, Author & Former Senior US Trade Official

Michael L. Beeman was a Visiting Scholar at the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC) from 2023 to 2024. He researched and wrote about trade policy issues such as economic security between the United States and Asia. He also taught international policy as a lecturer with the Ford Dorsey Masters in International Policy program. From January 2017 until January 2023, he was Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for Japan, Korea and APEC at the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR). In that role, he led the renegotiation of the U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement and the U.S.-Japan Trade Agreement, among other initiatives. Prior to this, he served in other capacities at USTR and, between 1998 and 2004, at the U.S. Department of Commerce.  He received his D.Phil. (Ph.D.) in Politics from the University of Oxford in 1998 and an M.A. in International Relations from Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in 1991.  He is the author of Walking Out: America’s New Trade Policy in the Asia-Pacific and Beyond (Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center, 2024) and Public Policy and Economic Competition in Japan (Routledge, 2003).

Discussant:

Hiroki Takeuchi, Director, Sun and Star Program on Japan and East Asia, SMU Tower Center

Hiroki Takeuchi received his B.A. of Economics from Keio University in Japan, his M.A. of Asian Studies from University of California at Berkeley, and his Ph.D. of Political Science from University of California at Los Angeles. He is currently an Associate Professor of political science, and Director of the Sun and Star Program on Japan and East Asia in the Tower Center at SMU. Previously, he taught at UCLA as a faculty fellow of  the Political Science Department and at Stanford University as a postdoctoral teaching fellow of the Public Policy Program. Professor Takeuchi's research and teaching interests include Chinese and Japanese politics, comparative political economy of authoritarian regimes, and international relations of East Asia, as well as applying game theory to political science.

Any person who requires a reasonable accommodation on the basis of a disability in order to participate in this program should contact the SMU Tower Center at tower@smu.edu in advance at least 4 days prior to the event to arrange for the accommodation.

SMU Tower Center | http://www.smu.edu/TowerCenter

Southern Methodist University (SMU)

3300 University Boulevard, Dallas, TX 75275-0117

214-768-3954  tower@smu.edu