Ideas have often been
used as an explanatory framework for states’ interactions in international
trade. This article deepens the debate on normative ideas in international
political economy, conceptualizing beliefs as driving factors in international
trade. I offer a categorization of different levels of ideas, differentiating
between worldviews and programmatic beliefs. I look at the role of domestic
beliefs on the functioning of the economy in the European Union (EU) and
China’s policy actions in the World Trade Organization (WTO) between 2001 and
2021. I argue that programmatic beliefs guide actors’ policy actions in the
WTO, and that different sets of programmatic beliefs – the EU’s idea of free
trade and China’s idea of state-led economic growth – lead to different policy
actions in international trade.