1 Looking at trade protection policy from the historical evolution of international trade policy
The evolution of international trade policy in the world is generally divided into five stages:
(1) Mercantilism in the primitive accumulation period of capitalism was the theoretical basis of protectionism at that time.
(2) Free trade policy was dominant in the period of free competition capitalism, but Germany and the United States after the same period, under the influence of Hamilton and Liszt's thought of protecting trade, advocated using trade policy to protect the development of their infant industries, especially manufacturing industries, based on their specific external competitive conditions.
(3) During the period of monopoly capitalism 1929, the worldwide economic crisis became a catalyst to surpass protective trade policy.
(4) In the post-war world trade liberalization trend, major capitalist countries set off a wave of trade liberalization. However, the trend of post-war trade liberalization is different from the period of free competition, which does not emphasize full trade freedom, but a reserved trade freedom, and does not completely exclude trade protection policies.
(5) The energy crisis, currency crisis, debt crisis and high unemployment rate in the new protectionist period under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) 1973 have dealt a heavy blow to the developed countries' economies, making their trade policies break away from the laissez-faire trend of thought in the past and turn to protectionism with management as the main means, which has triggered a global wave of protective trade.
It is not difficult to see from several stages of the evolution of international trade policy in history that the nature of national trade policy is protective. There are four main points: first, before GATT, the trade policies of countries were not bound by multilateral trade agreements, and the foreign trade policies formulated by countries were entirely based on their own interests, which easily led to trade protection; Second, although protective trade policy and free trade policy have appeared alternately several times in history, protective trade policy is dominant in time; Third, protection is a "red line" that runs through the historical evolution of international trade policy. Even in the period when liberalization is dominant in history, there is still the shadow of trade protection; Fourthly, free trade was advocated in 1950s, and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) was concluded to restrain the protective measures of various countries, but the protective nature of trade policies has not changed because of the international coordination of trade policies. In March 2002, the United States initiated the 20 1 clause on steel, and imposed tariffs of up to 30% on steel imports from the European Union, Japan, South Korea, Russian Federation and China, which is a typical example.
2 protective trade policy's theoretical explanation
2. 1 Uneven distribution of trade benefits among countries is the main source of trade protection.
Xu Jianbin and Yin Xiangshuo pointed out in their article The Deterioration of Terms of Trade and the Effectiveness of Comparative Advantage Strategy that the continuous deterioration of terms of trade in developing countries and the widening income gap between North and South under free trade make people have to reflect on the effectiveness of trade strategy based on comparative advantage. Using the extended ricardian model, this paper makes a modeling analysis on the deterioration of the terms of trade and the widening income gap between North and South in developing countries, and draws the conclusion that although free trade between countries is indeed beneficial to both sides of trade, the benefits obtained by both sides of trade are unequal. Generally speaking, in the free trade between developed and developing countries, developed countries benefit more than developing countries. In this way, it is difficult for developing countries to catch up with developed countries and realize their own rejuvenation. Therefore, in the process of countries competing for trade benefits, there will inevitably be the implementation of protective trade policies [1]. Moreover, history has proved that no country has always advocated trade liberalization and adopted high tariff protection policies before industrialization. A series of measures to correct the unfair distribution of trade benefits, such as the developing country exception clause of GATT and GSP, fully show that the uneven distribution of trade benefits among countries is the main source of trade protection. However, as a developed country, why did the United States appear new trade protectionism in the 1970s?
2.2 The unfair distribution of trade benefits brought by free trade in domestic industries is another pressure of trade protection.
To explain this phenomenon, take the American steel industry as an example. As a developed country, the United States should benefit more from free trade than developing countries. So why does the Bush administration of the United States still brandish the big stick of Article 20 1, and do not hesitate to trigger a worldwide steel war? The reason is simple: the benefits of various industries in the United States in the free trade system are unequal, and even some departments have negative benefits. According to the data, due to the competition of international steel suppliers under free trade, from 1.990 to 1.999, about 5,000 people in American steel manufacturing industry lose their jobs every year. From 1999 to 200 1, there are 18 steel companies in the United States, and more than 23,500 workers are unemployed [2]. According to the theory of comparative cost and factor endowment of international trade, countries with more capital, such as the United States, should produce capital-intensive products and then exchange them to obtain the benefits of international division of labor. The problem now is that the United States should not only produce and export capital-intensive products, but also keep labor-intensive products healthy for domestic political and social considerations. ...................