Editing Protectionism (section)

==Protectionist policies==
{{Main|Tariff}}[[File:Emblem of the Ligue Nationale pour la Défense du Franc.svg|thumb|Logo of Belgium's National League for the Franc's Defense, 1924]]
A variety of policies have been used to achieve protectionist goals. These include:
* [[Tariff]]s and [[import quota]]s are the most common types of protectionist policies.<ref name="Essentials">Paul Krugman, Robin Wells & Martha L. Olney, ''Essentials of Economics'' (Worth Publishers, 2007), pp. 342–345.</ref> A tariff is an [[excise tax]] levied on imported goods. Originally imposed to raise government revenue, modern tariffs are now used primarily to protect domestic producers and wage rates from lower-priced importers. An import quota is a limit on the volume of a good that may be legally imported, usually established through an import licensing regime.<ref name="Essentials"/>
* Protection of technologies, patents, technical and scientific knowledge <ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/06/world/asia/wide-china-push-is-seen-to-obtain-industry-secrets.html|title=China Seen in Push to Gain Technology Insights|first1=Edward|last1=Wong|first2=Didi Kirsten|last2=Tatlow|date=5 June 2013|access-date=16 October 2017|website=[[The New York Times]]}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/03/technology/artificial-intelligence-china-united-states.html|title=China's Intelligent Weaponry Gets Smarter|first1=John|last1=Markoff|first2=Matthew|last2=Rosenberg|date=3 February 2017|website=[[The New York Times]]|access-date=16 October 2017}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://observer.com/2016/04/the-unpleasant-truth-about-chinese-espionage/|title=The Unpleasant Truth About Chinese Espionage|date=22 April 2016|website=Observer.com|access-date=16 October 2017}}</ref>
* Restrictions on [[foreign direct investment]],<ref>Ippei Yamazawa, "Restructuring the Japanese Economy: Policies and Performance" in ''Global Protectionism'' (eds. Robert C. Hine, Anthony P. O'Brien, David Greenaway & Robert J. Thornton: St. Martin's Press, 1991), pp. 55–56.</ref> such as restrictions on the acquisition of domestic firms by foreign investors.<ref>Crispin Weymouth, "Is 'Protectionism' a Useful Concept for Company Law and Foreign Investment Policy? An EU Perspective" in ''Company Law and Economic Protectionism: New Challenges to European Integration'' (eds. Ulf Bernitz & Wolf-Georg Ringe: Oxford University Press, 2010), pp. 44–76.</ref>
* Administrative barriers: Countries are sometimes accused of using their various administrative rules (e.g., regarding [[food safety]], environmental standards, electrical safety, etc.) as a way to introduce barriers to imports. 
* [[International commercial law#Anti-dumping measures|Anti-dumping legislation]]: "[[Dumping (pricing policy)|Dumping]]" is the practice of firms selling to export markets at lower prices than are charged in domestic markets. Supporters of anti-dumping laws argue that they prevent the import of cheaper foreign goods that would cause local firms to close down. However, in practice, anti-dumping laws are usually used to impose trade tariffs on foreign exporters.
* Direct [[Subsidy|subsidies]]: Government subsidies (in the form of lump-sum payments or cheap loans) are sometimes given to local firms that cannot compete well against imports. These subsidies are purported to "protect" local jobs and to help local firms adjust to the world markets.
* Export [[Subsidy|subsidies]]: Export subsidies are often used by governments to increase exports. Export subsidies have the opposite effect of export tariffs because exporters get payment, which is a percentage or proportion of the value of exported. Export subsidies increase the amount of trade, and in a country with floating exchange rates, have effects similar to import subsidies.
* [[Exchange rate]] control: A government may [[currency intervention|intervene in the foreign exchange market]] to lower the value of its currency by selling its currency in the foreign exchange market. Doing so will raise the cost of imports and lower the cost of exports, leading to an improvement in its [[trade balance]]. However, such a policy is only effective in the short run, as it will lead to higher [[inflation]] in the country in the long run, which will, in turn, raise the real cost of exports, and reduce the relative price of imports.
* International [[patent]] systems: There is an argument for viewing national patent systems as a cloak for protectionist trade policies at a national level. Two strands of this argument exist: one when patents held by one country form part of a system of exploitable relative advantage in trade negotiations against another, and a second where adhering to a worldwide system of patents confers "good citizenship" status despite 'de facto protectionism'. [[Peter Drahos]] explains that "States realized that patent systems could be used to cloak protectionist strategies. There were also reputational advantages for states to be seen to be sticking to intellectual property systems. One could attend the various revisions of the Paris and [[Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works|Berne conventions]], participate in the cosmopolitan moral dialogue about the need to protect the fruits of authorial labor and inventive genius...knowing all the while that one's domestic intellectual property system was a handy protectionist weapon."<ref>{{cite book |title=Information Feudalism: Who Owns the Knowledge Economy?|year=2002|publisher=Earthscan|location=London|isbn=978-1-85383-917-7|page=36|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Pkl7HNzhXgoC&q=%22States+realized+that%22&pg=PA36|author=Peter Drahos|author2=John Braithwaite}}</ref>
* Political campaigns advocating domestic consumption (e.g. the "Buy American" campaign in the United States, which could be seen as an extra-legal promotion of protectionism.)
* Preferential governmental spending, such as the [[Buy American Act]], federal legislation which called upon the United States government to prefer US-made products in its purchases.

In the modern trade arena, many other initiatives besides tariffs have been called protectionist. For example, some commentators, such as [[Jagdish Bhagwati]], see developed countries' efforts in imposing their own labor or environmental standards as protectionism. Also, the imposition of restrictive certification procedures on imports is seen in this light.

Further, others point out that free trade agreements often have protectionist provisions such as intellectual property, [[copyright]], and patent restrictions that benefit large corporations. These provisions restrict trade in music, movies, pharmaceuticals, software, and other manufactured items to high-cost producers with quotas from low-cost producers set to zero.<ref>[http://www.globalpolicy.org/globaliz/econ/2003/0714rta.htm] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061017061845/http://www.globalpolicy.org/globaliz/econ/2003/0714rta.htm|date=17 October 2006}}</ref>