Trade relations in the Americas, where generations of statesmen have been frustrated by their inability to achieve lasting economic integration, are taken up in Chapter 14. These efforts go as far back as the 1820s, but have repeatedly encountered the same barriers. Chief among them is Washington’s short attention span, in which periodic proposals for new initiatives in the Western Hemisphere typically lose momentum when other regions rise in importance. The chapter examines how the failure of the hemispheric negotiations recapitulated well-established patterns in inter-American relations, as did the subsequent fragmentation of that process into a series of subregional and bilateral FTA negotiations. The chapter elaborates on these points by examining in greater detail the US objectives and accomplishment in the apparel and petroleum sectors, each of which initially enjoyed success but have lately floundered.