Limiting Trade

In 2009 about 11.1 percent of our goods were exported, and in 2008 about 13.5 of our goods were exported. The decline of import and export trades in 2009 was one consequence of the global recession. However, limiting trade isn’t necessarily a bad thing. “Because it is possible that with free trade some businesses go under and some workers lose their jobs, it is useful to go summarize some of the questionable and some of the good reasons to limit trade” (Robert). A questionable reason would be the protection of jobs within businesses that may be cheaper to import. We might not trade with another country because the good may be important to our national security or identity. We also may not trade with another country because they allow child labor, or they gain comparative advantages though worker safety rules, and environmental laws.
“Though there are clearly short-run costs to free trade, when people lose their jobs to foreign competition and need retraining to get new ones, the long-term benefits usually outweigh these” (Robert). This happens when other countries find a better or more cost-effective way of producing the good. The people producing the good here may lose their jobs as a result. Protecting our industries in this case is not beneficial for a couple reasons. For capitalism to work, we must reward people who succeed, and punish the ones to fail. If the government doesn’t trade internationally, our industries will become lax, and will not produce the best goods for the lowest price. Also, if the other countries see that we protect our industries from competition they may do the same. Instead of everyone benefiting, we may go back to the days before trade, and lose consumption possibilities.
Countries have developed...

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...d good, known as tariffs. The second method uses a quota. This is “a legal restriction on the amount of a good coming into a county”(Robert). Finally the last method you simply make the import too costly. This method is most commonly used on agricultural goods, and becomes apparent when the rules get silly. “Although it is perfectly legitimate for a country to want to inspect a shipment to look for certain diseases, bugs, or parasites, countries will sometimes use such inspections as an excuse to limit imports” (Robert). Many examples of these nontariff barriers exist for logical reasons, and some are dubious.

Works Cited

Guell, Robert C. “17 International trade” Issues in Economics Today. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill/Irwin, 2010. N. pag. Print
Radcliffe, B.. N.p.. Web. 6 Mar 2014. .