Assignment on Trade Barriers, Hypocrisy, & the United States

Course Code: EM 556 Course Title: International Marketing Submitted By: Nahid Rijwan [ID: 3-09-17-033] Despite all the hype about globalization and the supposed universal triumph of free-market policies, government of United States, continue to interfere in the flow of goods, services, and capital across international borders. The U.S. Congress, despite its rhetoric, is a poor defender of free trade and the prosperity it can bring to consumers. The widespread intervention in question takes two basic forms: Barriers that discourage trade and, Subsidies that encourage domestic production and exports.

US trade policy and the world scenario: U.S. trade barriers remain high against trade in farm goods, textiles, and clothing and unfair "antidumping" laws remain the protectionist weapon of choice for domestic industries that want to get hitched their foreign competition. Global commerce is further distorted by the widespread use of subsidies aimed at promoting certain kinds of trade, investment and domestic production. Those subsidies encourage overproduction of domestic agricultural products through farm price supports, and favor selected exporters through such agencies as the Export-Import Bank. Though, America's political leaders complain incessantly that U.S. producers must compete in a world of "unfair" trade barriers and subsidies, in contrast to the "open" U.S. market. But few members of Congress vote consistently for policies that would create a truly open market free of those barriers and subsidies. Protectionism in the guise of free trade: In global perspective, if there is one area of commerce where free trade will do the most for those in underdeveloped countries, for the poor that is, it is farming. That is what the poor do in underdeveloped countries most of all, and for them to have even the slightest chance at improving their economic circumstances, they need customers. If the market prevailed, they would sell what they produce, much of it to the US, the world's biggest consumer of farm products. At several UN world summits and WTO summits, representatives from the third world usually come hoping for more foreign aid, and more trade liberalization. But what did the government officials, the US delegates to the UN World Summit, the former "leader of the free world" do in response to this? Aside from demanding open markets for US exports, US delegates insisted on yielding to the American farm lobby and keeping in place barriers, in the form of high tariffs and subsidies, to prevent the poor from abroad from selling what they produce to consumers in the United States. In gross, US insist that the third world needs to take down barriers while also insisting on US rights to keep barriers as high as possible politically, the erection of trade barriers by means of politics. They do not want to compete by producing better stuff, at lower prices, no. They want to get ahead by bribing the referees and getting special favors from them at the clear expense of others. Now do we remember when America was called the leader of the Free World? It seems like so long ago. Now the USA is the leader of the protectionist world, the very opposite of free, at least where international commerce is concerned.