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Hi, this is Anita from the Global Trade Gal

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Today I want to talk about trade, specifically
about trade and import and export restrictions

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and why we have them in the first place. I mean,
after all, shouldn't the world be full of free trade

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Well, the truth is there really is no free trade. And there's
many reasons why there are different types of trade restrictions

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I want to talk about this because I feel
like this is sort of a bit of a timely topic

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As I've seen it in my last 20 or 30 years
where I've been working in global trade

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when I first started out, there weren't that
many really that restrictions or issues

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It was actually relatively easy. It seemed like being
able to especially import things into the United States

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But over, I would say the last 10 years or 15 years,
you know, it started becoming harder and harder

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There's different types of restrictions that have
been placed on, especially on countries like China

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When China first opened up, you know,
everything was pretty much free and easy there

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It was very easy to export out of. Today, it's a much harder or much
difficult thing, especially to a country like the United States

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Yes, China does continue to export
a lot to the United States deal

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but there are many regulations and other things which are placed
upon products from China into countries as the United States

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States. So here are some reasons why countries
will say we're going to have trade restrictions

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You know, whether or not these are actually, you
know, correct or not, they are some of the reasons

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Number one is probably protectionism. They believe
that by doing so, they can protect the home

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economy. You've seen this a lot specifically in
Asia. I remember years ago when I lived in Thailand

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very expensive to import anything from the United States
into Thailand. In fact, we were importing some furniture

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and furniture had like 100 plus percent tax on it. Why? Because the
ties felt that they were protecting the Thai economy at the time

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So this type of protectionism is
not just with the United States

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but can also be with many types of other countries.
That's why when you go overseas, many times

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find a foreign car can be very expensive because
there's protectionism issues placed upon cars and

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automobiles so cars can become extremely expensive,
especially an imported car. Another reason could be

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that they want to safeguard public health and
safety. You know, safety can come first in what we

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you know, we eat, what we wear, and use daily.
So governments can enforce standards to say that

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product needs to be of a certain standard. You know,
this can especially, to be true for things like toys

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when it comes to things that children might
use or children could put into their mouth

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when it comes to things as food things that we may eat things that we can wear or things that we go onto our
as you know maybe creams or other things all of these things which can be imported you know into a country

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a country will usually have some type of restrictions
on of exactly, you know, what there's local

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standards are and that companies that are
working in that need to be able to meet or exceed

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the local standard. You know, also there's restrictions
on things like vehicles or electronics or, you know

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that's why when we ship lamps to the United
States, the lamps need to have a UL certification

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Why? Because then the lamp has gone through
a certain type of safety testing standard

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and it's just easier to import and sell
it into the United States with that

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Another reason could be for preserving the environment. You know,
countries may put up restrictions for preserving the environment

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This is really starting to happen a lot now,
especially as there's new regulations now

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with the UN and Europe and other places about
sustainability issues, about the environment issues

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which many European countries are starting to comply with. And this, you
know, it's become a big deal for many parts of Asia that need to start looking

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at all of these different things in order to be
able to export their products to those countries

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So, you know, it could be, you know, things
that, you know, environment plays a huge role

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There's a lot of concern, especially
in many parts of the world about the

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environment about climate change, about, you
know, all of these things that are happening

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where, you know, storms are happening, other things are happening because many people believe
it has to do with the environment and climate change. So many countries are starting to have

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regulations that start to regulate that more,
you know, to combat, you know, pollution, to

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combat use of plastics, to all of those different
things they're starting to look at more and to

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say, what can we do to change this? Another reason
why a country may have regulations on would be

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they want to support their own strategic interests.
They, you know, every time a trade barrier goes up

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a lot of times it's not just for, you know,
for the fact that it's going to, you know

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protect the local economy or anything like that.
It's really for strategic interest. When President

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Trump was president of the United States, he
put many tariffs on goods that were made in

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China. In fact, everything that was made in China
since that time those terrorists have not come off

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I don't know how many jobs is actually brought back
to the United States. My guess is not very many

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because in all of my years, an experience
where I've seen these protectionism measures

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it hasn't really, in my opinion, brought that many
jobs back to the United States or other places

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especially in my own industry. Because, for
example, you know, there's just not people in the

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United States now who maybe want to make furniture,
who want to weave furniture products, who

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who want to you know hand paint a vase There the people just are not there that are doing that in a huge way to make an impact on
this In fact if you want that type of product you need to find it in Asia So companies instead of moving back to the United States

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a lot of them instead move to Vietnam, move to
Indonesia, moved to the Philippines, moved to India

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So, you know, in a sense, these protectionism
issues that a lot of countries put on

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it doesn't necessarily mean the jobs are going to come back to their own country.
countries, it just means it's probably going to shift to another location

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Another reason is that governments want to,
you know, encourage fair trade practices

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If they feel like there's unfair trade practices,
there's problems with, you know, the intellectual

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property laws, you know, all of those type of
things that a, you know, country may, you know

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start to, you know, put, you know, put trade
restrictions on one country because of this

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You know, an example of this, of course, has been the United States and China and a lot of their trade wars that's been going on recently
where the U.S. has felt there's unfair trade practices going on from China or there's the violation of intellectual property rights

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So even though your industry may not be involved in that or not be involved in the trade
wars, you can basically end up with extra tariffs or other things being placed upon you

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and you can essentially remain in the middle of
it all. So what are some ways that countries will

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that they will do the type of restrictions? And
I'll just kind of go through this very quickly

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We have a really good blog post that our
author James Johnson's written on this

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which goes into a lot of detail, which will put a link below in the
description. But it's about anti-dumping or countervailing measures

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I've watched a lot of anti-dumping
in my time, especially years ago

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There was anti-dumping with the bedroom furniture
industry where several of the large furniture

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companies took out an anti-dumping against China. But I don't know of any
of them that really have been building furniture today in the United States

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First of all, there's just not the workers. And second
of all, they're all they're all buying from overseas

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So, you know, China's got this anti-dumping placed upon it, which, you know,
hasn't really brought back the workers as people have said that it would

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But anti-dumping is one way that a lot of, you know, companies and countries may use to do anti-dumping, saying
there's unfair trade practices going on here, and that this will mean that there'll be more duties placed upon it

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Also, my own experience with the anti-dumping, which happened years ago with
the bedroom furniture, was that a lot of the major, major, major factors

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the larger factories were able to hire the lawyers in the United States to be able
to get a very small duty placed upon the products exported from their their factory

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It was the smaller factories that were producing what I would say higher quality goods that were not dumping at all that were
that really you know we not selling it necessarily the cheapest price but we selling high quality that end up hurting and they

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could no longer sell that type of product
because they simply didn't have the lawyers

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So, you know, one of the problems with a lot of
these trade restrictions is that maybe the big

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guys win and the little guys do not. There can be, you know, problems
on intellectual property protection could be another reason why

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a country can put on they can prohibit or
restrict certain types of goods that they can

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restrict chemicals they can restrict other things
of other goods other goods to come into a certain

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country or they could not allow you like in the
example of the United States what's happening

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now with some of the chip manufacturers that
they cannot be allowed to sell certain types of

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chips into China either you know the
computer chips so you know can kind of

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to go both ways. Governments can put regulations on
both ways. They can, there could be international

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sanctions that are happening. It could be another
reason why maybe trade will become an issue

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They could be, they can put on quotas or
licensing, only allow so many products in

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You know, so all of this, of course, can impact
international trade in a lot of ways. It can make a lot

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more harder, can make it more difficult, can just
mean that, you know, it can affect, you know

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all the global supply chain. And what I've seen,
you know, a lot of these protectionism measures

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you know, the big companies a lot of times are able
to weather it. They're able to be the ones that

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are able to make it through. They've got the teams.
They've got the money. They've got, you know

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in many cases, they've got the lawyers. They're
able to fight it. They're able to get special

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deals on things. It's usually the smaller guys.
The smaller guys like you and me, you know

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many of you that it might be out there listening,
that we're the ones that maybe heard a lot from

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these different regulations. And that's really what
it comes, I mean, you know, comes down to, you know

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that even though they're meant to protect a country
or protect other things, my, you know, my main

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question is whether or not they really actually
do. I'm not totally against all regulations

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but I haven't seen where many of these regulations
have been effective and worked as well as they

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could have. I'm going to put a link in our description
to this blog post, which is quite interesting

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on understanding import and export restrictions. There's
a lot more detail, a lot more information on this

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If you'd like to read more about it. And
we hope that this is important for anyone

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who's in the global supply chain to be able to understand
because these restrictions can come on at any time

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And if they're going to come on, then you're going to have
to be prepared for it and decide what you're going to do

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or how you're going to be able to survive through
it. This is Anita from the Global TradeGal

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Thank you so much for listening. We hope you'll subscribe to our podcast. If you're listening on YouTube, you'll subscribe to our YouTube channel. We'd
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