Question

Respond to the following in a minimum of 175 words:

• Discuss non-monetary benefits open trade has contributed to the world since the end of WWII. Provide at least 2 examples. Why do you think these are important?
• How have changes to US trade and tariff policies affected US trade with other nations? Consider recent (less than 2 years old) credible news sources to support your response.

Answer 1

Open trade has contributed to prosperity of the nations around the world in an unambiguous way.

However, it is also very important to look at non-monetary benefits that open trade has contributed to the world since the globalization started after the World War II.

Following are the non-monetary benefits of open trade :-

( I ) Global peace - Open trade has kept the countries around the world at relative peace with each other. Economic reasons have far outweighed the differences between the countries. The best example of global peace is the fact that the world has not seen any world war since last 75 years.

( II ) Co-existence of different ideologies and political sysytem - Another significant benefit from open trade is the trade between countries with extremely different political system and ideologies. A communist China's largest trade partner is a democratic United States.

( III ) Rise in standards of living:- Not a single country is left untouched with benefits from trade. Even the poorest region in the world- the African region has seen a general and persistent rise in standard of living.

Recently US has imposed tariffs on many import items such as Aluminium, Steel and most of the imports from China, mainly on the grounds of national security and harm to local manufacturing.

Imposition of tariffs has reduced its trade participation with some countries in those items. However, one more trend that has been observed is that imports from China have decreased to some extent, but imports for the same items have increased from the neighbouring nations of China such as Vietnam. This shows mere shift in location for the imported items.