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Even developed countries resort to old-fashioned tariff walls. Japan, which generally has some of the lowest import fees in the world, imposes a 15% to 20% tariff on plywood because of the political clout of its lumber industry. In 1983 the U.S. hiked its duty on large motorcycles from 4.4% to 49.4% to protect Harley-Davidson, the last American manufacturer of the big bikes...
...been used for many years and have grandfather status. The problem is that only established Japanese companies and the government know what is on the supplemental list, and they are not telling foreign manufacturers, who have no way of knowing in advance if their products will make it past import inspectors...
...tape can be just as daunting in developing countries. Raul Velarde, a Mexican importer and exporter, complains that every time he brings in goods, he must get at least 15 signatures. He once got a permit to import zippers, but they arrived unassembled. They were held up in customs, Velarde says, because his permit did not cover "parts of zippers...
...modernize and become more efficient. Man hours per ton of carbon steel produced by large mills fell from 7.8 in 1978 to 5.4 in the second quarter of this year. So far, however, the Administration's effort to buy the industry some breathing space with voluntary quotas on imports has not produced results. Even if shipments from the major exporters can be slowed, the industry fears smaller producers will step in to take up the slack. So far, only one-third of the 76 steel-producing nations have agreed to limit their exports, and some agreements have loopholes. Korea...
...many ways, the defensive strategy is appealing. It certainly would be easier. American executives and workers could relax, secure in the knowledge that thanks to protective tariffs and restrictive import rules they had to worry much less about foreign competition or losing their markets. That strategy, though, ignores the fact that competition is the driving force of Western economies. Joseph Schumpeter, the Austrian-born philosopher of capitalism, described how businesses compete and change in a process of "creative destruction." In Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy (1942), he wrote that firms "incessantly revolutionized the economic structure from within, incessantly destroying...