Sample Answer (Preview)
The following is a partial sample answer showing the approach, structure and referencing expected for this brief. It covers approximately 25–30% of the full 4–5 page (about 1,240-word) essay, using the United States and India. Sources are cited in APA 7th edition style.
Introduction
Trade barriers are government measures that restrict imports or raise their cost, such as tariffs, import quotas, subsidies to domestic producers and non-tariff measures like licensing rules and technical standards (Krugman et al., 2018). This essay compares the approaches of the United States, a developed economy, and India, a developing economy. It analyses the types of barriers each country uses, the economic arguments given for them and their effects on domestic industries and international trade, and it ends with policy recommendations to reduce their harmful effects. The two countries make a useful contrast: India kept high tariffs for decades before its 1991 reforms cut them sharply, and the cuts raised the productivity of Indian firms (Topalova & Khandelwal, 2011).
The United States: Targeted Tariffs in a Low-Tariff Economy
Types of Barriers
For most goods the United States has low tariffs, but since 2018 it has used targeted tariffs as an active policy tool. In 2018 it placed tariffs on imported steel and aluminium on national security grounds and on a wide range of Chinese goods, and its trading partners retaliated with tariffs on US exports (Fajgelbaum et al., 2020).
Economic Justifications
The government justified these tariffs as a way to protect strategic industries, reduce the trade deficit and respond to what it saw as unfair trade practices. In standard trade theory, a tariff raises the domestic price of the protected good, which helps domestic producers but costs consumers more than producers gain, except in special cases such as a large country able to push down world prices (Krugman et al., 2018).
Impacts on Domestic Industries and Trade
The evidence suggests that the costs fell mainly on Americans. Amiti et al. (2019) found that the tariffs were passed through almost completely into US import prices, so domestic consumers and importers bore the cost rather than foreign exporters. Fajgelbaum et al. (2020) estimated that losses to US consumers and firms that buy imports reached $51 billion, or 0.27% of GDP. After allowing for tariff revenue and gains to protected producers, the net loss to the US economy was smaller, at about $7.2 billion…
[End of preview] The remaining sections are included in the full solution, which is available on order. They cover the rest of the US impacts, India’s approach to trade barriers (types, justifications and impacts), the comparison of the two countries and the policy recommendations.
References
Amiti, M., Redding, S. J., & Weinstein, D. E. (2019). The impact of the 2018 tariffs on prices and welfare. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 33(4), 187–210. https://doi.org/10.1257/jep.33.4.187
Fajgelbaum, P. D., Goldberg, P. K., Kennedy, P. J., & Khandelwal, A. K. (2020). The return to protectionism. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 135(1), 1–55. https://doi.org/10.1093/qje/qjz036
Krugman, P. R., Obstfeld, M., & Melitz, M. J. (2018). International economics: Theory and policy (11th ed.). Pearson.
Topalova, P., & Khandelwal, A. (2011). Trade liberalization and firm productivity: The case of India. The Review of Economics and Statistics, 93(3), 995–1009. https://doi.org/10.1162/REST_a_00095
