Obstacles to International Trade

International trade is a powerful engine of growth. All countries have a common interest in promoting trade as an instrument of economic progress. International trade is characterized by unequal exchange of goods and services. The share of developing countries in total international trade is small; their export products face an increasing variety of protectionist measures in developed market economies; the value of their imports is being eroded by worldwide inflation; and the possibilities of improving intraregional trade among developing countries themselves are rather remote. Developing countries are being increasingly bypassed by multilateral trade and tariff negotiations. The traditional international division of labor still applies; it leaves the developing countries the function of producing and exporting primary products and reserves for the developed nations that of industrializing those same products for international consumption and export. This chapter discusses obstacles to International trade. It presents some obstacles to commodity trade, obstacles to trade in manufactures, obstacles to trade among developing countries, and obstacles to trade between socialist countries and the third world.