This article examines the consequences of the international community’s and, more specifically, the United States’ efforts to help Jordan develop through the use of Preferential Trade Arrangements (PTAs). Specifically, it looks at how an effort to encourage garment and apparel manufacturing in Jordan, through special tariff reductions that are not generally available to other trading partners of the U.S., led to some unintended and undesirable results from the perspective of labor rights compliance and development. The article concludes that PTAs that intend to promote development and labor rights need to examine the specific labor market and economic context of trading partner countries to determine how to best design trade policy.