Transparency in US Trade Policymaking: Inclusive Design or Exclusionary Process?

This article aims to deconstruct the concept of transparency in trade policymaking and analyse its consequences on the redistribution of power among stakeholders. To do so, it examines the presidency of Barack Obama (2009–2016), who repeatedly promised to make transparency one of its central governing principles. The study relies on policy analysis of legislative reform, executive orders, and recent trade agreements as well as discursive analysis of government sources. It reveals that while transparency has gained traction in the trade sphere, it can have diverging meanings and even opposite effects. By providing greater information to the public, transparency mechanisms can foster inclusiveness and democratic accountability to the benefit of civil society actors. However, transparency rules also have exclusionary effects that can not only shut out non-state actors but also constrain democratically elected governments under the logic of free market expansion. Under the Obama administration, efforts to bring greater accountability to the trade policy process mostly failed, while the transparency narrative was instrumentalised to pursue national economic objectives and impose greater market disciplines on America’s trading partners. Evidence shows that the prevalence of exclusionary forms of transparency over inclusive mechanisms persisted under the Trump presidency.