Protectionism

Not to be confused with Autocracy and Autarchy

"Protection is but the law of nature, the law of self-preservation, of self-development, of securing the highest and best destiny of the race of man."
William McKinley

"The vast majority of our imports come from outside the country."
George W. Bush

Protectionism, also known as Economic Nationalism or the fundamentalist version called Autarky (closed economy), is an ideology that believes that an economy of a nation should be protected against foreign influence for reasons that vary depending on who you ask. Generally, it is to promote and develop the local industry, not to be a simple importer of manufactures, so that the foreign industry does not devour the local industry and prevent foreign companies from buying local companies.

History

Before (-1700)

TBA

Modern (1700-1900)

TBA

World Wars (1900-1950)

TBA

Cold War (1950-2000)

With limited trade, Communist Bloc and Capitalist Bloc were basically isolated from each other in the economics, but then Sino-Soviet Split also happened within the Communist Bloc, and developing capitalist countries like Japan also implement protectionist policies to developed countries like USA.

At the same time, Non-Aligned Group are everything from nearly complete protectionist as India to manchesterism as some countries.

After Deng's "Reform and Opening-up", PRC's economics started to trade with the Capitalist Bloc, which exacerbated the imbalance of economic power between the two groups.

Emerging Market Countries

They initially fueled industrial growth and economic sovereignty by shielding nascent sectors through tariffs, subsidies, and quotas, but ultimately faced pressures to liberalize amid global competition and structural inefficiencies, balancing short-term nurture with long-term integration.

Japan

In the early post-war period, Japan implemented the "tilted production method" policy, which gave priority to the development of the coal and steel industries. Later, in the 1950s and 1960s, Japan introduced a series of industrial rationalization policies to improve the production efficiency and international competitiveness of basic industrial sectors. It also provided support and protection for emerging and growth-type industrial sectors, restricted imports, and limited direct foreign investment in Japan.

However, its exports overly rely on the single US market. Meanwhile, export-oriented policies and investment accumulation have also squeezed domestic consumption, resulting in an inability to rely on sluggish domestic demand. So in the end, Japan agreed to make concessions to the United States, including signing the Plaza Accord, etc., hoping to promote a healthier transformation of the economic structure through proactive reforms.

South Korea

Culture industry example, Screen quota system: In the 1960s, South Korea introduced a screen quota system to require movie theaters to show domestic films for a certain number of days each year. At its peak, theaters were required to show South Korean productions for at least 146 days a year to promote the development of the domestic film industry.

Taiwan (Republic of China)

The export-oriented strategy drove the rapid growth of Taiwan's economy, making it one of the "Four Asian Tigers." The selective protectionist policies also helped some key industries to grow and develop. In the late 1990s, with the approach of Taiwan's accession to WTO, it gradually liberalized its trade and investment policies, reducing protectionist measures to meet the requirements of international trade rules.

People's Republic of China

After the Founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949~1950, Korean War in 1950~1953 and Sino-Soviet Split in 1956~1960, PRC had to gradually adapting surviving without international trade.

Until Mao meeting with Nixon in 1972, Mao's death in 1976 and Deng starting "Reform and Opening-up" in 1978, China and the world market both started being willing to open to each other.

However, protectionism also started in PRC, which once became especially strong before China joining WTO in 2001.

The Republic of India

After independence in 1947, India spent decades trying to survive without international trade.

The country ditched its model of local production for local consumption following a currency crisis in the early 1990s that forced policymakers to ask the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for help.

The IMF cash came with conditions: India had to open up to foreign investment, cut red tape and remove trade barriers.

Many saw this as the start of India's reintegration into the global economy.

The Soviet Union & Eastern Bloc

The Soviet Union conducted the bulk of its foreign economic activities with communist countries, particularly those of Eastern Europe, so as Eastern Europe to USSR.

The Soviet Union

Soviet foreign trade played only a minor role in the Soviet economy. In 1985, for example, exports and imports each accounted for only 4 percent of the Soviet gross national product. The Soviet Union maintained this low level because it could draw upon a large energy and raw material base, and because it historically had pursued a policy of self-sufficiency.

The government of the Soviet Union always held a monopoly on all foreign trade activity, but only after the death of Joseph Stalin in 1953 did the government accord importance to foreign trade activities.^[1]

Eastern Europe

The East European countries had exposed themselves to the Western economy in varying ways and varying degrees, and they had been "burned". Poland, for example, had exploded, and the Soviet leaders could thank their good fortune that they had not been forced to send in their own troops in order to preserve the system. The natural conclusion for the Soviets to draw from the East European experience was that Eastern Europe had made a mistake, that it should redirect its economic ties more toward the Soviet Union, and that the Soviet Union should learn from the experience and not expose itself to the world economy in the same way.^[2]

The United States of America

Generally speaking, America in the cold war era don't need or want protectionism, until Japan's export-oriented economics towards it grew rapidly after WW2, and raised strong enough to threat USA's position. Therefore, it started protectionist policies, including restrictive bills, import quotas, lawsuits, investigations, anti-dumping duties, urging voluntary export restraints, demanding the signing of resource export restriction agreements, pressuring Japan to eliminate domestic tariffs, requiring investment in the US to build factories, countering investment, countering mergers and acquisitions, precise strikes against leading enterprises, trade protection clauses, industry consolidation between the US and Japan, removing trade barriers, opening up the Japanese market, and strengthening technological intelligence monitoring, etc.

Moreover, in terms of currency exchange rates, in 1985, US, Japan and other countries signed the Plaza Accord, which pushed up the value of the Japanese yen, weakened the price competitiveness of Japanese export goods and reduced the trade deficit of US with Japan.

Contemporary (2000-)

Protectionism is not new. After all, it was the beggar-thy-neighbor trade policies that partly precipitated the Great Depression of the early 20th century. But protectionism in the 21st century heightened in the aftermath of the GFC is characteristically different.

With reduced instances of outright currency manipulation and tariff imposition (until Trump), governments have increasingly resorted to such behind-the-border policy instruments as industrial subsidies, state aid, export credits, "buy national" directives, labor laws, technical standards and trade defense mechanisms to protect domestic market and discriminate against foreign commercial interest.

As many countries take a protectionist turn, international trade is losing steam. For much of the post-World War II period, the global merchandise trade was expanding about twice as much fast as the world's total economic output but the growth ratio now is approximately 1:1.

At the same time, cross-border flows of investment, services, technologies, data and personnel and other indicators of socioeconomic interdependence have all stagnated, provoking concerns over what has been referred to as "slowbalization."

The European Union

During the first two decades in the 21th century, the European Union has been very successful in concluding trade agreements with countries outside the EU. Some of these agreements only came into force provisionally and partially, but there is no denying that the EU has had considerable success, possibly more so than in the further liberalization of trade within the EU.

In recent years, however, things have stagnated. It all started with the failure of "TTIP" in 2016, which was supposed to be a major trade agreement with USA. EU did manage to agree deals with the South American trade bloc Mercosur in 2019 and with China in 2020 – this was an all in all limited investment pact – but the political opposition among EU member states to ratify these appears particularly strong, with the Chinese sanctions in retaliation for EU sanctions not really helping either. A trade deal was also reached with the UK at the end of last year, but then that was really necessary to limit the damage from Brexit. And the trade deal with Australia also failed in 2023.

On top of that, European Commission announced a more protectionist policy course in 2019, before the outbreak of the Corona crisis, which gave global protectionism a substantial boost. It is focusing on the imposition of "anti-dumping measures" when trading partners apply subsidies or "unfair" pricing, as well as stricter supervision of foreign investment, especially when it involves a Chinese state investor. Furthermore, this also involves heavy supervision of "big tech", with the European Commission enthusiastically using the weapon of competition policy to threaten big tech companies with fines, whereby "fair competition" is not always clearly defined and it all rather quickly seems to boil down to targeting more successful U.S. competitors.

A particularly important development is also what might be called European "environmental protectionism". While European energy prices are going through the roof, in part because of the high compensation European companies must pay to emit CO2, because of the EU's CO2 emissions trading system, the Commission is working on a carbon tax which foreign importers of certain goods will have to pay. This system is called "Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism" (CBAM).

On top of that, the European Commission is keen to subject trade to the adoption of all kinds of EU standards and rules, "putting sustainability at the heart of its new trade strategy". Practices like forced labor and overwork – which is a risk in the context of the EU agreement with China – should of course be outlawed. However, the standards of products in EU are usually stricter than the outside, which force foreign competitors to redesign products and production process, making them pay higher costs.

The EU's concerns about unsustainable land use seem to be absent when looking at the European agricultural policy, with the EU still spending a third of its long-term budget of 1,100 billion euros on the agricultural sector. Large industrial do not mind subsidizing intensive agriculture in Europe with taxpayers money, while prohibiting imports on the basis of the so-called concern about unsustainable land use.

The Republic of India

Over the last 20 years, liberalisation has connected Indian young, vibrant workforce with firms around the world.

Today, India is one of the world's top outsourcing destinations, with many of its workers powering back-end IT systems, call centres and software development.

This has also helped India to run a trade surplus - whereby it sells more than it buys - in goods and services with the US.

However, Indian trade policy's described as opaque, unpredictable, and says it often leaves foreign firms drowning in paperwork.

Although Modi welcomes foreign investments, but foreign investors also report some trappes for them.

People's Republic of China

All countries have enacted some form of protectionist trade policies: China (200-300), the USA (over 800), and the UK and Germany (300 each). Most protectionist measures worldwide are imposed against China. Sometimes this development is even referred to as a new trade war.

However, China is not so much a victim of protectionism as critics often point out the strong incentives it gives to its domestic companies to export (such as tax cuts and other hidden subsidies). Furthermore, China has heavily protected the direct access to its domestic market for a long time.

It is well-known for using compulsory joint ventures, technology transfer and access to cheap land and loans for state owned enterprises (SOEs) to catch up and gain advantage in strategic economic sectors. However, China has reached a point at which it would benefit more from the elimination of protectionism.

The Great Firewall

Here is about the economic impact of "GFW". The main article about politics is Police Statism#The Great Firewall .

What was initially the blocking of a few web pages that the Chinese government deemed sensitive, such as those about the Chinese occupation of Tibet or the Tiananmen Square Massacre, has turned into a massive filter between the Chinese web and the websites and apps of many foreign companies, news media, and File:NGO.png NGOs. The Great Firewall has gotten progressively more sophisticated, and a major move came in 2009 when the growing social networks Facebook and Twitter were blocked, along with YouTube.^[3]

This has everything to do with protecting the party's grip on power. Helping domestic companies may be an additional side benefit, but it is not the main reason. It gave China the best of both worlds: courting local innovation and foreign investment to make the country a hub for tech manufacturing without the pesky side effect of relinquishing too much of the Communist Party's near-monopoly on information.

This is likely costing big tech companys of USA billions in potential revenue, but it is really difficult to quantify how much China's trade barriers impact US companies. Existing rules at the WTO -- mostly agreed to in the mid-1990s, when the internet as we know it didn't exist -- have proven ineffective.

Trumpist USA Trade Wars

After a long history of lessons, United States of America seems to have abandoned protectionism and embraced Neoliberalism. However, overseas outsourcing may be too large-scale, and had become a kind of hypercorrection, driven by many interest groups especially as multinational corporations, capitals and bourgeoisie.

As the main victims of unemployment caused by international job transformation, Native white working class became "MAGAs", and voted for Donald J. Trump in presidential elections to express their anger. In order to respond to them, Trump started the biggest trade wars on their behalf.

Trump&Biden 1st Trade War

Before becoming president, Trump had promoted tariffs on imports in 2017, in order to retaliate against countries he believes are "ripping-off" the United States. Trump has insisted that foreign nations pay the tariffs he imposes; however, several economists say the reality is that American importers pay them.

In January 2018, Trump imposed tariffs on solar panels and washing machines of 30–50%. In March, he imposed tariffs on steel (25%) and aluminum (10%) from most countries, which, according to Morgan Stanley, covered an estimated 4.1% of U.S. imports. In June, this was extended to European Union, Canada and Mexico. He also separately set and escalated tariffs on goods imported from China, leading to a trade war.^[4]

Trading partners implemented retaliatory tariffs on U.S. goods. In June 2018, India planned to recoup trade penalties of $241 million on $1.2 billion worth of Indian steel and aluminum, but attempted talks delayed these until June 2019 when India imposed retaliatory tariffs on $240 million worth of U.S. goods. Canada imposed matching retaliatory tariffs on July 1, 2018. China implemented retaliatory tariffs equivalent to the $34 billion tariff imposed on it by the U.S.

In July 2018, the Trump administration announced it would use a Great Depression-era program, the Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC), to pay farmers up to $12 billion, increasing the transfers to farmers to $28 billion in May 2019. The USDA estimated that aid payments constituted more than one-third of total farm income in 2019 and 2020.

Tariff negotiations in North America were relatively more successful, with the U.S. lifting the steel and aluminum tariffs on Canada and Mexico on May 20, 2019, joining Australia and Argentina in being the only nations exempted from the regulations. However, on May 30, Trump unilaterally announced his intention to impose a five percent tariff on all imports from Mexico beginning on June 10, with tariffs increasing to 10% on July 1, and by another 5% each month for three months, "until such time as illegal migrants coming through Mexico, and into our Country, STOP", adding illegal immigration as a condition for U.S.-Mexico tariff negotiations. The move was seen as threatening the ratification of the United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement (USMCA), the North American trade deal set to replace the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). The tariffs were averted on June 7 after negotiations.

A May 2019 analysis conducted by CNBC found Trump's tariffs are equivalent to one of the largest tax increases in the U.S. in decades. Studies have found that Trump's tariffs reduced real income in the United States, as well as adversely affecting U.S. GDP. Some studies also concluded that the tariffs adversely affected Republican candidates in elections.

President Trump's successor, President Biden, kept most of the tariffs in place, dropping tariffs on European steel while further expanding tariffs on goods such as EVs and semiconductors from China, resulting in more tax revenue being collected from tariffs under Biden than under the first Trump administration.

Trump-Global 2rd Trade War

While campaigning for his second term as US president, Trump pledged even larger tariffs than his first term, including 60% on China, 100% on Mexico, and 20% on all other countries. He also proposed tariffs to penalize US companies that outsourced manufacturing, such as a 200% tariff on John Deere. Trump also suggested replacing income taxes with tariff revenue—an idea economists from the Tax Foundation deemed "mathematically impossible". 23 Nobel Prize-winning economists signed a letter warning that Trump's policies, including high tariffs, would "lead to higher prices, larger deficits, and greater inequality".^[5]

Trump appointed close economic advisor Peter Navarro as his Senior Counselor for Trade and Manufacturing. Navarro had been recently imprisoned for defying congressional subpoenas related to his role in attempts to overturn the 2020 election, including his "Green Bay Sweep" strategy. Navarro advocates for a permanent regime of trade barriers to balance the trade deficit and wrote books criticizing corporations for prioritizing profits over American jobs. He had served in high-ranking trade roles during Trump's first term, but was often rebuffed by free market-minded Trump administration officials.

Shortly after the 2024 election, Stephen Miran, now chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under Trump, released a white paper titled "A User's Guide to Restructuring the Global Trading System," which proposed using tariffs as a tool to drive down the value of the dollar through a negotiated 'Mar-a-Lago Accord'. Miran and other key figures in the administration have suggested that the dollar is significantly overvalued because of its status as a global reserve currency, and that tariffs can be used to weaken the dollar and revitalize American manufacturing. Trump agrees with his ideas, but he prefer to get his own way.

During his second-term inaugural address, Trump pledged to "immediately begin the overhaul of our trade system to protect American workers and families. Instead of taxing our citizens to enrich other countries, we will tariff and tax foreign countries to enrich our citizens."

On March, the US notified the WTO that it would suspend planned contributions indefinitely—11% of the WTO's $232 million 2024 budget, a fee based on the country's share of global trade.

"The Liberation Day"

On April 2, 2025, United States President Donald Trump signed and announced at a White House Rose Garden ceremony, dubbed as the "Liberation Day" speech, Executive Order 14257, titled Regulating Imports with a Reciprocal Tariff to Rectify Trade Practices that Contribute to Large and Persistent Annual United States Goods Trade Deficits.^[6]

The president unveiled a two-tier tariff structure: a baseline 10% tariff applied universally to imports from all countries with the exception of Canada and Mexico, and additional country-specific "reciprocal" tariffs based on what the administration deemed unfair trade practices by approximately 60 individual nations.

Trump declared a national emergency to address what he described as a "large and persistent U.S. trade deficit", enabling him to invoke the IEEPA. these tariffs would be applied in addition to existing measures on Chinese imports.

The tariffs would apply to more than 100 trading partners. However, they would not impact products already subject to previous tariff actions, including steel, aluminum, vehicles, and vehicle parts. Energy products and certain minerals "not available in the United States" were also exempted.

The initial tariff formula was based on the trade deficit rate of the United States with various countries, but then some coutries retaliated and complex market effects occurred. After that, Trump became highly opportunistic, so it is still impossible to summarize the general trend from the chaos at present...

Variants

Followings are four main variants of protectionism, which're also four main ways protectionists can choose, whose degrees of external communication are ranked from nearly zero to high.

Because they contradict each other, a protectionist country can only choose one of these four roads, or choose a middle road between adjacent roads.

Autarky

Autarky is a fundamentalist version of protectionism that supports a completely closed-off economy from foreign goods.

External communicative degree: nearly zero

Developmentalism

"To rapidly industrialize the country; to transfer the bases of autonomous development from abroad to our territory; to make the manufacturing industry the dynamic center of national economic activities - this would sum up my purpose, my option."
Juscelino Kubitschek^[7]

Developmentalism is an economic theory, which states that the best way for less developed economies to develop is through fostering a strong and varied internal market and imposing high tariffs on imported goods.

External communicative degree: few

Fair-Trade Protectionism

Fair-Trade Protectionism involves implementing protectionist measures in a way that aligns with fair trade principles, such as imposing tariffs or quotas on imports of goods produced under unfair labor conditions or environmental practices. The aim would be to protect domestic producers who adhere to fair trade standards from being undercut by cheaper imports produced under exploitative conditions. It focuses in particular on commodities, or products that are typically exported from developing countries to developed countries.

External communicative degree: normal

Neo-Mercantilism

Neomercantilism is a school of international economic thought which espouses an export-orientated economy, with subsidies and regulations favoring national business and larger corporate entities, over foreign competition.

However, like other exclusiveness ideologies, the demand of neomercantilism in one country is to break the protectionism of some other countries.

This model of trade became popular in the United States during the 1970s when American firms were suffering from competition from the Japanese industry.

Examples of countries with an export-orientated economic model include:

External communicative degree: high

Personality

Protectionism loves country and people which he lives in, whose personality is somewhat like Nationalism, but more introverted.

He is also a bit like avoidant personality‌, especially in his Autarky variant, but in his Neomercantilism variant, it is more like somewhat fearful-avoidant and narcissism.

He likes to protecc, and hates nonsense about international freee trade.

How to Draw

Draw a ball
Color it grey
Inside the ball, draw an orange-red shield
Add two eyes

Finished!

Color Name		HEX	RGB
	Gray	#A0A0A0	rgb(160, 160, 160)
	Orange-Red	#DA4830	rgb(218, 72, 48)

Relationships

They Protecc

National Conservatism - Right-wing protectionists are based!
Left-Wing Nationalism - Left-wingers can be protectionists too!
Welfare Chauvinism - Protecting the social benefits of the natives from the immigrants? Sounds great!
Mercantilism - My father from whom I learned a lot, love you, dad! But you would be better if you aren't not obsessed with breaking me, when I'm not in your country.
Regulationism - You are my means!
Trumpism - Make American industry great in the world again! Global tariff is absolutely based! However, you're also cynical and speculative. I'm not a toy you can play with, so just take it seriously. And also, you're neomercantilist.
Bidenism - You too? Welcome aboard! And you aren't neomercantilist.
Isolationism - Protecting the land and resources as well as trades from foreigners is based AF.
Nationalism - Glory to Stanistan! We'll trade surplus with Neighborstan, which means they buy our products, but we don't buy theirs!
Paleoconservatism - Protect America!
De Francism - Great implementation of me!
Ilminism - Based anti-commie.
Juche - Based commie.
Hoxhaism - Another based commie.
Marxism-Leninism - Socialism in one country is very effective.
Coolidgism - The only libertarian that I like.
Integral Neo-Darwinism - Best RightLib.
Alter-Globalism - A globalist who actually understands the importance of me and respects fair trade.
Ingsoc & Death Worship & Neo-Bolshevism - 1984 is based.
Fiscal Conservatism - Let's eliminate the trade deficit together!
Democratic Socialism - Import and capital controls are great tools too!
Socialism of the 21st Century - One of my biggest supporters in the modern day.
Hamiltonianism - American System was absolutely BASED.

Maybe Protecc?

Keynesian School - Do you want to protecc or not?
Romanian Liberalism - You did a good job in your country, but nowadays you're a filthy neolib.
Partidul Național Liberal - The above modern counterpart. At least it is good you have embrace economic patriotism recently.
Alt-Lite & Alt-Right - You can be pretty cool sometimes, but a lot of you are also free-market fundamentalists.
Paleolibertarianism - At least we both backed up Pat Buchanan and Donald Trump, also Rothbard said that tariffs are less bad than NAFTA.
Social Democracy - Some of you guys are pretty cool (but not as cool as him), but a lot of your followers embrace global freee trade as well.
Social Liberalism - Often even more loving of global freee trade, but apparently a good chunk of your Canadian followers really like me.
Right-Wing Populism - Some of you love me, but others accuse me of being a socialist.
Left-Wing Populism - Some of you love me too, but others accuse me of being far-right.
American Model - You hypocritically used me to become one of the strongest nations in history, but then turned around and punished others who did the same.
Dengism - Similarly, you also got benefits from protectionism, has more recessive trade barriers than only seeming moderate tariffs, but plan to abandon me after development.

Doesn't Protecc

Classical Liberalism - Adam Smith's "invisible hand" isn't real, learn from him! Henry Clay was based tho.
Liberal Conservatism - You have ruined conservatism!
National Liberalism - And you have ruined nationalism!
Libertarian Conservatism & National Libertarianism - The two above but on weed.
Libertarianism - You need to ditch freee trade.
Neoliberalism - Economic globalization is NOT inevitable!!! And if it was, it would be a bad thing.
Conservative Neoliberalism & Neoconservatism - F#€k Reagan, F#€k Thatcher!
Neo-Libertarianism - Even worse than his father.
Globalism - Globalism is not very good for the nation.
European Federalism - Your stupid international dream won't succeed!
Georgism - I don't like the "freee trade" part of your slogan.
Agorism - What do you mean that people would resort to the black markets rather than pay tariffs?
Anarcho-Capitalism - My worst enemy!
Neighborstan - No! I don't want your stupid products!