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The fundamental objective of American foreign economic policy after the Second World War was to establish a regime in which impediments to the movement of capital and goods were minimized. In this quest American central decision makers were largely successful because of America's external power. However, because of the weakness of the US political system, that is, the ability of private groups to check state initiatives, public officials were constantly faced with domestic political constraints. These constraints were more apparent in the area of commercial policy, where decisions involved Congress and executive agencies susceptible to societal influences, than in monetary policy, where decisions were made in a more insulated environment. The decline of America's external power, which became evident in the mid-1960s, was accompanied by growing demands for protection as more sectors of the American economy were adversely affected by foreign trade. This has led to increasing incoherence in US policy and greater instability in the international economic regime.

The structure of international trade, identified by the degree of openness for the movement of goods, can best be explained by a state-power theory of international political economy. This theory begins with the assumption that the nature of international economic movements is determined by states acting to maximize national goals. Four goals—aggregate national income, political power, social stability, and economic growth—can be systematically related to the degree of openness in the international trading system for states of different relative sizes and levels of development. This analysis leads to the conclusion that openness is most likely to exist when there is a hegemonic distribution of potential economic power. Time-series data on tariff levels, trade proportions, regional concentration, per capita income, national income, share of world trade, and share of world investment are then presented. The first three are used to describe the degree of openness in the trading system; the last four, the distribution of state power. The data suggest that the state-power theory should be amended to take into consideration domestic political constraints on state action.

Relations between official agencies and private business concerning international coffee policy suggest that the power of the state dominates the international economic arena. The International Coffee Agreement did not benefit the United States coffee industry. Despite this, some large coffee roasting companies supported the Agreement. Without their support it would not have received Congressional approval. The action of the roasters can be explained by the behavioral theory of the firm, which emphasizes managerial discretion and risk avoidance. Large oligopolistic companies, potentially the most powerful of business enterprises, are also the ones least likely to oppose the state. However, the ability of one company to determine American policy toward the import of soluble coffee from Brazil shows that when the economic interests of an oligopolistic firm are unambiguously threatened, it can severely constrain official actors.