Question

Governments often pursue policies that promote exports while limiting imports. What are some of those policies? What about the United States?. In our current time should countries protect and keep needed supplies during a crisis, and is this a national security issue or are countries panicking?

Answer 1

The government often wants to increase its exports, as it is the main method through which it could earn monetary value from other countries. This is also the same reason why the government wants to limit imports from other countries. The more a country consumes from others, the more they should pay to them.

Some of the policies are:

• Rise in import duty:- The rise in import duty would increase the price of the product. This would decrease the level of import and would give more advantage to domestic products.
• Quotas:- Fitting a limit to import of a product from another country, for a specific period.
• Discriminatory procurement policies
• Restrictive customs procedures
• The regulation with the restrictive notion

The US always tends to follow and use protectionist policies. They have used this policy to limit the import of sugar and they succeeded in it. Us uses Tariffs (tax imposed on goods) to limit the import level. They imposed a 35% tariff on imported canned tuna.

Yes, in a scenario like this, the countries should be prepared. They should protect and keep needed supplies. A pandemic situation is what the world faces now. Trade and international services have restrictions more than ever. This is not panicking, it is a step of precaution. Even the UN and WHO wants each country to prepare for this.