Paving the Way for the Marlboro Man: Bilateral U.S.-South Korea Negotiations on Liberalizing the South Korean Cigarette Market, 1985–1988

Abstract Declining smoking rates in the United States during the 1980s forced transnational tobacco companies to look abroad for new markets. In East and Southeast Asia, they found countries, such as South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, and Thailand, where scores of smokers were walled behind protectionist trade policies. By utilizing Section 301 of the 1974 Trade Act, the United States threatened sanctions against these countries if they did not open their domestic markets to foreign tobacco. From 1985 to 1988, the Republic of Korea ( rok ) slowly acquiesced to U.S. demands and liberalized its cigarette market, culminating in the signing of a Record of Understanding in May 1988. While the final agreement was a significant win for the United States, the bilateral negotiations that resulted in this deal have remain understudied. Utilizing archival documents from both the rok and the United States, as well as industry documents, this article argues that the precedence of deals reached with Japan and Taiwan weighed heavily on the negotiations with South Korea, and that, despite common perception, the rok government was able to secure important concessions in the negotiations.