We study democratization, coups and trade policy determination in an environment marked by intra-elite conáict over trade policy by taking a simple general equilibrium model of an open economy and combining it with the Acemoglu-Robinson model of democratization. Unlike the approaches taken in the previous literature, we study the simultaneous determination of trade policy and the political regime. Introducing a politically determined trade policy not only a§ects the equilibrium trade policy but also ináuences the nature of the political regime.