International Free Trade : Key Issues For Managers

International trade is the exchange of capital, goods, and services across international borders or territories. Trade enhances the quality of life and aids the Canadian economy and its people. International trade offers a variety of advantages and disadvantages. First off, trade creates jobs, and it's statistically proven that 1 in 5 jobs depend on trading, either directly or indirectly. Yet this is simply an accounting of how much spending in the economy is accounted for by exports. Taken from another perspective, this vastly understates how dependent Canada is on trade. The structure and the organizations of the entire economy are crucially dependent on trade and integration with regional and global trading networks. Many of the benefits

Some Major benefits of international trade include the reduction of poverty, expansion of business opportunities for local companies and reduces costs for consumer.

If each country specializes in areas where its advantages are greatest or disadvantages are least, the gains from trade will make each country better off than it would be if it remained self-sufficient. [3]

International trade barriers are restrictions put in place by the government to prevent the inflow of international goods and services to the country. These restrictions are placed by the government officials with the intent of protecting their economy from the international competition; they include tariff and nontariff barriers. Some of the argument for trade restrictions includes the following; It serves as a national defense from competitions to foreign companies, it serves as a means to protect infant industry from imports until they have enough capital to invest, it serves as a means to protect domestic jobs from cheap foreign labor, It also serves as a means to permit diversification of the domestic economy and a way to improve balance of trade (Ball, Geringer, Mcnett &Minor, 2012). Barriers to trade exist in developed and underdeveloped countries; some of these countries include China, United States, Japan, Russia, India, Latin America, European and African countries. Upon examining the barriers to trade which exists in different continents of the world, specifically comparing the barriers in developed countries to underdeveloped countries, there tends to be some similarities as well as differences. A closer look at countries such as China and Nigeria denotes a clear picture of what would be considered a developed and underdeveloped country. By reviewing the barriers that exists in both countries, similarities and

From an academic standpoint, economists overall believe that free trade would benefit the economy more than instituting tariffs and non-tariff trade barriers. However, the reality is quite different. Politically, tariffs help to strike a balance between social welfare and the politicians’ goals. One theory is that campaign contributions are needed for re-election; and to achieve these funds, politicians will weigh this need against welfare-reducing protection for industry lobbyists (Magee, 2011). The models would suggest that the tariffs should actually be much higher than they are due to the low efficiency cost of tariffs compared to the substantial gains provided for the producers (Magee, 2011). However, developed countries actually have very low tariffs. There are six possible explanations for why developed countries have such low tariffs when the political theories behind why we have tariffs at all would suggest they should be higher.

Furthermore, companies have adequate resources at their disposal and new technologies in research, and productions. It also helps to create job employment, improving the state of economy. Protectionism associated to isolationism interferes with the economy, which worsens the state of living for many people.The most important economic benefit of internationalism is low costs and a global increase in business and trade. Lower production costs mean lower price inflation. By looking at international markets and global customers to purchase products and by creating global demands for local products, internationalism leads to overall increase in business

a number of gains to be obtained from international trade, such as lower prices, greater choice,

International trade is believed by economists to be good for both countries involved. It promotes financial and economic growth throughout the world. It creates jobs, sustains economies, improves standards of living, promotes competition, lowers prices, and strengthens the bond between nations. In 2012, approximately 4.9 million people were directly or indirectly holding jobs that were associated with the production of goods and services sold to other countries (cite). Many of these jobs are manufacturing jobs that produce large amounts of products to sell to other countries. This is called an export. Export sales help maintain high levels of employment by breaking down barriers of unfair taxes. With opportunity to buy product from other countries, prices remain competitive.

First of all, Globalisation helps to promote international division of labour. According to Heckscher-Ohlin theory (Gerber, 2014, pp.72-76), nations are endowed with different levels of each production factors which have determined their comparative advantage. When trade open, a country will specialise in producing its comparative advantage products and choose to import comparative disadvantage products from other countries. By specialising in the production of comparative advantage product, it can achieve economies of scale. Then the cost of production will decrease. One of the most intuitive senses will be the less expensive product because people can purchase imported comparative disadvantage product and indigenous comparative advantage product both at lower prices than in the past.

While free trade could potentially mean a lot of benefits, its superiority over protectionism is strictly theoretical, under the conditions that you disregard all the unique conditions of each country involved, and the possibility of exploitation of workers, resources and legal loopholes by large corporations. Realistically industries will be monopolized by whichever country that does it cheapest, thus making any competition in that industry from the other countries extremely unprofitable and unsustainable. Each country would only be able to focus on sectors that they have a comparative advantage in, while the other industries would stagnate, laying off masses of workers, causing high unemployment rates in the country. Furthermore, businesses are focused on their own profit so they’ll go for labour wherever it’s cheapest, which increases income disparity. Theoretically, free trade can bring about the largest amount of trade and aggregate wealth for everyone by making each country specialize in what it has an advantage in, to produce more for less, lowering the market prices to be more affordable, greatly boosting trade, and raising quality of life. Essentially free trade aims to maximize income for each country under the contemporary conditions. However even if everything miraculously goes as planned and that hypothetical situation is reached, even under these perfect conditions free trade will allow no further development of industry.

Secondly, all form of trade has a net positive effect on the economy. The idea that closed borders and less trade would help countries is an age old idea, an idea that once was abandoned when the mercantilistic system was replaced in favour for open borders and free trade. Almost all economists are agreeing that isolating a country from globalism is a bad idea, it does not bring more wealth, quite the

The theory of comparative advantage explains the benefit of free trade. According to this theory by David Ricardo in the early 19th century, “Both countries will be better off if each specializes in the industry where it has a comparative advantage, and if the two trade with one another.” (Citation) International trade opens up markets to foreign supplier, and domestic companies need to improve their efficiency, boost productivity, and lower cost to increase competitiveness instead of enjoying monopolies or oligopolies that enabled them to keep prices well above marginal costs. On the other hand, international trade also offers domestic companies bigger demands and broader markets; therefore more jobs relevant to export have been created. Furthermore, jobs in the US supported by goods exports pay 13-18 percent more than the US national average (ustr.gov).

For an open economy such as the UK having international trade promotes competition and avoids monopolies domestically. This

Traditional international trade involves a complex system of trade barriers to ensure the protection of domestic industry and its workers interests. The trade impediments and subsidies include protective tariffs, import quotas, non-tariff barriers such as licensing, and export subsidies. Originally, a country’s economy acted independently of other nations. The growing trend since the establishment of GATT in 1947 is globalization.

Continuing on with the positive economic effects of globalization, the economy puts forward a net benefit to the individual economies around the world. It does so by making the markets more efficient, increasing the competition, as well as spreading wealth around the world on a more equal playing field so that all countries have some kind of reward. This makes all countries want to strive to do well and for their superiors to do well also. International trade benefits us by having foods all year round, cheaper products, and allows countries to focus on their strengths and trade for the things they can’t make cost effectively on their own.