This course examines how states and firms design, erode, and reinvent trade cooperation across regions and time. From the failed International Trade Organization to the WTO’s stalled rule-making, exclusion and backsliding have long shaped global commerce. Students explore when actors favor flexible bilateral deals versus institutionalized arrangements, with cases spanning ASEAN, the European Union, Latin America, North America (CUFTA, NAFTA, CUSMA), and newer mega-regionals. Combining theory and evidence, the course equips students to analyze tariff bargaining, non-tariff barriers, institutional change, and geopolitics, situating contemporary trade conflicts within decades of experimentation in rules-based trade.