About the Book

The Wealth of a Nation is an authoritative history of the politics of trade in America from the Revolution to the Trump era.

In this riveting history, C. Donald Johnson emphasizes the benefits of the postwar free trade regime, but focuses in particular on the efforts to advance workers' rights.

This analysis of the political evolution leading to American liberal trade policies stresses the critical importance of the multilateral trading system's survival and defines the central political struggle between business and labor in measuring the wealth of a nation.

LEARN MORE

Purchase At

About Don

C. Donald Johnson is Director Emeritus of the Dean Rusk International Law Center at the University of Georgia School of Law, where he has taught international trade law in Beijing and Geneva.

He has served as a member of the U.S. Congress and an Ambassador in the Office of United States Trade Representative.

He is the author of The Wealth of a Nation: A History of Trade Politics in America.

Learn More

In The News

“This is a very dangerous course. We’re in uncharted territory,” said C. Donald Johnson, a former congressman from Georgia who worked at USTR under Clinton. “Whether they’re just doing this, like many things President Trump does, as a way to get leverage in negotiations, we’ll see. But if it’s not a bluff, we’re going to see a trade war."

- Bloomberg Politics

“In a tweet that reads like “Newspeak” from Orwell’s 1984, President Trump declares: “Trade wars are good, and easy to win.”

In truth, of course, both assertions are dangerously wrong, though emblematic of the president’s contempt for the system of trade rules built under American leadership out of the wreckage of war to bring economic stability and prevent trade wars.

--America’s Trade Policy Blog, written by C. Donald Johnson