Is there any law against a Presidential candidate making trade deals that are conditioned on their election to office?
<p>Sideshow Bob has once again declared his candidacy for President. As a demonstration of his ability to negotiate with foreign powers, Bob wants to negotiate a trade deal with a foreign government, with the mutual understanding that the trade deal cannot take effect unless and until Bob formalizes the trade deal as President (assuming neither the current nor any future President other than Bob wants the trade deal.)</p>
<p>Such conduct would appear to violate the text of the Logan Act; however, the sole intent of the Act appears to be to protect the foreign policy interests of the <em>current</em> US government. Since the trade deal would only take place in a hypothetical <em>future</em> US government, the current government's foreign policy interests would theoretically remain unaffected.</p>

<h3>If I'm the Attorney General, Bob goes on trial.</h3>
<p>Let's look at the relevant text from the Logan Act.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Any citizen of the United States, wherever he may be, who, without
authority of the United States, directly or indirectly commences or
carries on any correspondence or intercourse with any foreign
government or any officer or agent thereof, with intent to influence
the measures or conduct of any foreign government or of any officer or
agent thereof, in relation to any disputes or controversies with the
United States, or to defeat the measures of the United States, shall
be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or
both.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>I see no mention here of current or future administrations, only the influencing of foreign nations.  The semantics of current versus future administrations might be persuasive at trial, or might not.</p>
<p>That said, just violating the Logan act isn't enough to get one charged with it.  Kissinger certainly wasn't charged.</p>

united-states