The debate on duties And protectionism He returns cyclically and punctual as Halley’s comet reappears with regular passages during the changes of the different historical, political and economic phases. The economy can tell us the pros and cons depending on the cases and the eras in which we find ourselves, but it is the policy that puts us the hand of common sense or obtuseness.
International trade should predict reciprocity between the partiesclarity of rules for fiscal harmonization and absence of unfair practices. In reality, unbalanced policies are often seen in favor of a country (which could be more in need of development or simply more “dishonest”), non -harmonized tax overlaps (an asset subject to taxation in the country of origin and also in the country of destination) and clearly unfair practices such as dumping (with public subsidies that allow for manipulated prices for exports). From all this derive protectionist measures and duties of different nature. The duty for tax purposes can ensure additional revenue to the imported country, but in this case it must not be too high to discourage import. The dice for protectionist purposes is instead introduced precisely with the intention of protect national products and discourage the import of competing foreign goods.
But the exchanges They require clarity and neutrality, while geopolitics follows other logics.
He wrote Sergio Ricossa: “The interminable dispute between the supporters of protectionism and the supporters of free trade arises from wanting to resort to general principles in a matter where instead the contingent aspects, well fell in the reality of a given moment and a given place, count. For the same reason, not a few of the participants in the dispute show changes of opinion, regrets and inaccuracies of thought, and this when their principles come to conflict with historical needs with historical needs in historical needs. to which they run “. (Sergio Ricossa – Dictionary of Economy – Utet 1998).
It is important to consider the contingent economic and political context, to take into account the fact that the scales commercial Of the different countries they intertwine with each other and coexist with international treaties and agreements, within which the different countries are not all found in the same conditions regarding the possibility of freeing themselves from foreign trade. The effects due to fluctuations in changes between currencies are also added to these elements.
He still wrote reclosted: “… as you can see, we slip quickly into an endless case, whose complete exploration is almost impossible, while a thorough analysis is granted when we are faced with the whole field of the imaginable, but to a particular country, in a particular date. (…) it is thus reiterated that the protectionismif it is not purified with international agreements, risks pushing towards hostility between country and country. However, it finds its most fervent assertors among those who do not pose a mere economic problem of maximum well -being, and instead have in mind a problem of politics tout court, or a problem of maximum national power. This explains most of the misunderstandings and misunderstandings between the participants in the pro debate or against protectionism, for or against free trade. The UNI think in political terms, the others in economic terms. At the limit, if the economy is totally subordinated to the war needs of the nation, it does not escape the conclusion that it completely neglects the well -being of consumers, and dedicates all its means to war production, also making it immune from foreign conditioning. In the reverse, it must be agreed that for the purpose of maximum consumer well -being, free trade is ideal, as well as the wider international work division “. (Ibid)
But the reasons of state and the aspirations of national power do not necessarily look at the well being of consumerindeed often they trample him until he sacrificed him! In a spiral of lack of common sense and inability to manage the compromise that the free trade would require.
People in good faith and compromise of common sense. Rare goods.
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