Ronald Reagan in the context of Vineland

The North American Free Trade Agreement (Spanish: Tratado de Libre Comercio de América del Norte, TLCAN; French: Accord de libre-échange nord-américain, ALÉNA), referred to colloquially in the Anglosphere as NAFTA, (/ˈnæftə/ NAF-tə) was an agreement signed by Canada, Mexico, and the United States that created a trilateral trade bloc in North America. The agreement came into force on January 1, 1994, and superseded the 1988 Canada–United States Free Trade Agreement between the United States and Canada. The NAFTA trade bloc formed one of the largest trade blocs in the world by gross domestic product.

The impetus for a North American free trade zone began with U.S. president Ronald Reagan, who made the idea part of his 1980 presidential campaign. After the signing of the Canada–United States Free Trade Agreement in 1988, the administrations of U.S. president George H. W. Bush, Mexican president Carlos Salinas de Gortari, and Canadian prime minister Brian Mulroney agreed to negotiate what became NAFTA. Each submitted the agreement for ratification in their respective capitals in December 1992, but NAFTA faced significant opposition in both the United States and Canada. All three countries ratified NAFTA in 1993 after the addition of two side agreements, the North American Agreement on Labor Cooperation (NAALC) and the North American Agreement on Environmental Cooperation (NAAEC).

The United States Intelligence Community (IC) is a group of separate U.S. federal government intelligence agencies and subordinate organizations that work to conduct intelligence activities which support the foreign policy and national security interests of the United States. Member organizations of the IC include intelligence agencies, military intelligence, and civilian intelligence and analysis offices within federal executive departments.

The IC is overseen by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), which is headed by the director of national intelligence (DNI) who reports directly to the president of the United States. The IC was established by Executive Order 12333 ("United States Intelligence Activities"), signed on December 4, 1981, by President Ronald Reagan. The statutory definition of the IC, including its roster of agencies, was codified as the Intelligence Organization Act of 1992 (Pub. L. 102–496, H.R. 5095, 106 Stat. 3188).

The 1984 Summer Olympics (officially the Games of the XXIII Olympiad and commonly known as Los Angeles 1984) were an international multi-sport event held from July 28 to August 12, 1984, in Los Angeles, California, United States. It marked the second time that Los Angeles had hosted the Games, the first being in 1932. This was the first of two consecutive Olympic Games to be held in North America, with Calgary, Alberta, Canada, hosting the 1988 Winter Olympics. California was the home state of the incumbent U.S. president Ronald Reagan, who officially opened the Games. These were the first Summer Olympic Games under the IOC presidency of Juan Antonio Samaranch.

The 1984 Games were boycotted by fourteen Eastern Bloc countries, including the Soviet Union and East Germany, in response to the American-led boycott of the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow, Soviet Union, in protest of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan; Romania was the only Soviet-aligned state that opted to attend the Games. Albania, Iran, Libya and Upper Volta also chose to boycott the Games, but for unrelated reasons.

The Heritage Foundation (or simply Heritage) is an American right-wing think tank based in Washington, D.C. Founded in 1973, it took a leading role in the conservative movement in the 1980s during the presidency of Ronald Reagan, whose policies were taken from Heritage Foundation studies, including its Mandate for Leadership.

The Heritage Foundation has had significant influence in U.S. public policy making, and has historically been ranked among the most influential public policy organizations in the United States. In 2010, it founded a sister organization, Heritage Action, an influential activist force in conservative and Republican politics.

A veto is a legal power to unilaterally stop an official action. In the most typical case, a president or monarch vetoes a bill to stop it from becoming law. In many countries, veto powers are established in the country's constitution. Veto powers are also found at other levels of government, such as in state, provincial or local government, and in international bodies.

Some vetoes can be overcome, often by a supermajority vote: in the United States, a two-thirds vote of the House and Senate can override a presidential veto. Some vetoes, however, are absolute and cannot be overridden. For example, in the United Nations Security Council, the five permanent members (China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States) have an absolute veto over any Security Council resolution.

Jimmy Carter's tenure as the 39th president of the United States began with his inauguration on January 20, 1977, and ended on January 20, 1981. Carter, a Democrat from Georgia, took office following his narrow victory over Republican incumbent president Gerald Ford in the 1976 presidential election. His presidency ended following his landslide defeat in the 1980 presidential election to Republican Ronald Reagan, after one term in office. At the time of his death at the age of 100, he was the oldest living, longest-lived and longest-married president, and has the longest post-presidency.

Carter took office during a period of "stagflation", as the economy experienced a combination of high inflation and slow economic growth. His budgetary policies centered on taming inflation by reducing deficits and government spending. Responding to energy concerns that had persisted through much of the 1970s, his administration enacted a national energy policy designed for long-term energy conservation and the development of alternative resources. In the short term, the country was beset by an energy crisis in 1979 which was overlapped by a recession in 1980. Carter sought reforms to the country's welfare, health care, and tax systems, but was largely unsuccessful, partly due to poor relations with Democrats in Congress.

The 1980 presidential campaign of Ronald Reagan was a successful election campaign for President of the United States in 1980 by former California governor Ronald Reagan, and former CIA director George H. W. Bush. Reagan and Bush, defeated incumbent President Jimmy Carter and incumbent Vice President Walter Mondale. Reagan, a Republican who had also tried to seek the Republican nomination in 1976, launched his 1980 presidential bid on November 13, 1979, and secured nomination for his election on July 17, 1980. On November 4th, 1980, Reagan and Bush defeated Carter and Mondale in an electoral college landslide, winning 489 electoral votes compared to Carter and Mondale’s 49 electoral votes.

Reagan, a Republican and former governor of California, announced his third presidential bid in a nationally televised speech from New York City in 1979. He campaigned extensively for the primaries after losing the Iowa caucus to former congressman and director of the Central Intelligence Agency Bush. In the primaries, he won 44 states and 59.8 percent of the vote. He decided initially to nominate former president Gerald Ford as his running mate, but Ford wanted such extended powers as vice president, especially over foreign policy, that their ticket would effectively amount to a "co-presidency". As a result, negotiations to form a Reagan–Ford ticket ceased. Reagan then selected Bush as his vice-presidential running mate.

George Herbert Walker Bush (June 12, 1924 – November 30, 2018) was the 41st president of the United States, serving from 1989 to 1993. A member of the Republican Party, he also served as the 43rd vice president under President Ronald Reagan from 1981 to 1989 and previously in various other federal positions.

Born into a wealthy, established family in Milton, Massachusetts, Bush was raised in Greenwich, Connecticut. He attended Phillips Academy and served as a pilot in the United States Navy Reserve during World War II before graduating from Yale and moving to West Texas, where he established oil company Zapata Corporation. Following an unsuccessful run for the United States Senate in 1964, he was elected to represent Texas's 7th congressional district in 1966. President Richard Nixon appointed Bush as the ambassador to the United Nations in 1971 and as chairman of the Republican National Committee in 1973. President Gerald Ford appointed him as the chief of the Liaison Office to the People's Republic of China in 1974 and as the director of central intelligence in 1976. Bush ran for president in 1980 but was defeated in the Republican presidential primaries by Reagan, who then selected Bush as his vice presidential running mate. In the 1988 presidential election, Bush defeated Democrat Michael Dukakis.

Yasuhiro Nakasone (中曽根 康弘, Nakasone Yasuhiro; 27 May 1918 – 29 November 2019) was a Japanese politician who served as Prime Minister of Japan from 1982 to 1987. His political term was best known for pushing through the privatization of state-owned companies and pursuing a hawkish and pro-United States foreign policy.

Born in Gunma Prefecture, Nakasone graduated from Tokyo Imperial University and served in the imperial navy during the Pacific War. After the war, he entered the National Diet in 1947 and rose through the ranks of the Liberal Democratic Party, serving as chief of the Defense Agency from 1970 to 1971 under Eisaku Satō, international trade and industry minister from 1972 to 1974 under Kakuei Tanaka, and administration minister from 1980 to 1982 under Zenkō Suzuki. As prime minister, he passed large defense budgets and controversially visited the Yasukuni Shrine. A conservative contemporary of U.S. president Ronald Reagan, Nakasone privatized the Japanese National Railways and telephone systems, and favored closer ties with the U.S., once calling Japan an "unsinkable aircraft carrier". After leaving office in 1987, he was implicated in the Recruit scandal, causing the influence of his LDP faction to wane before he retired from the Diet in 2004.

The Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), derisively nicknamed the Star Wars program, was a proposed missile defense system intended to protect the United States from attack by ballistic nuclear missiles. The program was announced in 1983 by President Ronald Reagan, a vocal critic of the doctrine of mutual assured destruction (MAD), which he described as a "suicide pact". Reagan called for a system that would end MAD and render nuclear weapons obsolete. Elements of the program reemerged in 2019 under the Space Development Agency (SDA).

The Strategic Defense Initiative Organization (SDIO) was set up in 1984 within the US Department of Defense to oversee development. Advanced weapon concepts, including lasers, particle-beam weapons, and ground and space-based missile systems were studied, along with sensor, command and control, and computer systems needed to control a system consisting of hundreds of combat centers and satellites spanning the globe. The US held a significant advantage in advanced missile defense systems through decades of extensive research and testing. Several concepts, technologies and insights obtained were transferred to subsequent programs. Under SDIO's Innovative Sciences and Technology Office, investment was made in basic research at national laboratories, universities, and in industry. These programs have continued to be key sources of funding for research scientists in particle physics, supercomputing/computation, advanced materials, and other critical science and engineering disciplines.

In the United States, Article I, Section 7 of the Constitution provides that the president can use the veto power to prevent a bill passed by the Congress from becoming law. Congress can override the veto by a two-thirds vote of both chambers.

All state and territorial governors have a similar veto power, as do some mayors and county executives. In many states and territories the governor has additional veto powers, including line-item, amendatory and reduction vetoes. Veto powers also exist in some, but not all, tribal governments.

Executive Order 12333, signed on December 4, 1981 by U.S. president Ronald Reagan, was an executive order intended to extend powers and responsibilities of U.S. intelligence agencies and direct the leaders of U.S. federal agencies to co-operate fully with CIA requests for information. This executive order was titled United States Intelligence Activities.

It was amended by Executive Order 13355: Strengthened Management of the Intelligence Community, on August 27, 2004. On July 30, 2008, President George W. Bush issued Executive Order 13470 amending Executive Order 12333 to strengthen the role of the director of national intelligence (DNI).

The Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center, named after former United States president Ronald Reagan, is located in downtown Washington, D.C., and was the first federal building in Washington designed for both governmental and private sector purposes. It is the second largest federal building after the Pentagon At the time it was built, the Ronald Reagan Building was the most expensive federal building ever constructed, at a cost of $768 million.

Each of the organizations located in the Pennsylvania Avenue building are dedicated to international trade and global relations. Organizations headquartered in this building include U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) was a tenant for many years until November, 2025, when it was no longer an independent agency. The first private sector lease was signed with investment banking firm Quarterdeck Investment Partners, Inc. The building hosts conferences, trade shows, cultural events, and outdoor concerts. Post-9/11, security requirements for high-profile federal buildings have limited the amount of public access anticipated by the center's designers.

Howard Eliot Wolpe (November 3, 1939 – October 25, 2011) was an American politician who served as a seven-term U.S. Representative from Michigan and Presidential Special Envoy to the African Great Lakes Region in the Clinton Administration, where he led the United States delegation to the Arusha and Lusaka peace talks, which aimed to end civil wars in Burundi and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. He returned to the U.S. State Department as Special Advisor to the Secretary for Africa's Great Lakes Region. Previously, he had served as Director of the Africa Program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, and of the Center's Project on Leadership and Building State Capacity. While at the Center, Wolpe directed post-conflict leadership training programs in Burundi, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Liberia.

A specialist in African politics for 10 of his 14 years in the Congress, Wolpe chaired the Subcommittee on Africa of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. As chair of the House Africa Subcommittee, Wolpe co-authored (with Rep. Ron Dellums and others) and managed legislation that imposed sanctions against South Africa, by over-riding President Ronald Reagan's veto of that sanctions legislation (the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act of 1986). He also authored and managed the passage of the African Famine Recovery and Development Act, -- a comprehensive rewrite in the 1980s of America's approach to development assistance in Africa that included the creation of the African Development Fund.

The United States invaded Panama in mid-December 1989 during the presidency of George H. W. Bush. The purpose of the invasion was to depose the de facto ruler of Panama, General Manuel Noriega, who was wanted by U.S. authorities for racketeering and drug trafficking. The operation, codenamed Operation Just Cause, concluded in late January 1990 with the surrender of Noriega. The Panama Defense Forces (PDF) were dissolved, and President-elect Guillermo Endara was sworn into office.

Noriega, who had longstanding ties to United States intelligence agencies, consolidated power to become Panama's de facto dictator in the early 1980s. In the mid-1980s, relations between Noriega and the U.S. began to deteriorate due to fallout of the murder of Hugo Spadafora and the removal from office of President Nicolas Ardito Barletta. His criminal activities and association with other spy agencies came to light, and in 1988 he was indicted by federal grand juries on several drug-related charges. Negotiations seeking his resignation, which began under the presidency of Ronald Reagan, were ultimately unsuccessful. In 1989, Noriega annulled the results of the Panamanian general elections, which appeared to have been won by opposition candidate Guillermo Endara; President Bush responded by reinforcing the U.S. garrison in the Canal Zone. Following the declaration of a state of war between Panama and the United States passed by the Panamanian general assembly, as well as the lethal shooting of a U.S. Marine officer at a PDF roadblock, Bush authorized the execution of the Panama invasion plan.

Paleoconservatism is a political philosophy and a strain of conservatism in the United States stressing American nationalism, Christian ethics, regionalism, traditionalist conservatism, and non-interventionism. Paleoconservatism's concerns overlap with those of the Old Right that opposed the New Deal in the 1930s and 1940s as well as with paleolibertarianism.

The terms neoconservative and paleoconservative were coined by Paul Gottfried in the 1980s, originally relating to the divide in American conservatism over the Vietnam War. Those supporting the war became known as the neoconservatives (interventionists), as they made a decisive split from traditional conservatism (nationalist isolationism), which then became known as paleoconservatism. Paleoconservatives press for restrictions on immigration, a rollback of multicultural programs and large-scale demographic change, the decentralization of federal policy, the restoration of controls upon free trade, a greater emphasis upon economic nationalism, and non-intervention in the politics of foreign nations.

The Malta Summit was a meeting between United States President George H. W. Bush and Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev on December 2–3, 1989, just a few weeks after the fall of the Berlin Wall. It followed a meeting that included Ronald Reagan in New York in December 1988. During the summit, Bush and Gorbachev declared an end to the Cold War, although whether it was truly such is a matter of debate. News reports of the time referred to the Malta Summit as one of the most important since World War II, when British prime minister Winston Churchill, Soviet General Secretary Joseph Stalin and US President Franklin D. Roosevelt agreed on a post-war plan for Europe at the Yalta Conference.