الحروب التجارية

How did nations build and protect their economies? And how did they deal with trade wars?
At the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, Britain shone as one of the best countries transitioning from local agricultural economies to a state-supported industrial economy, imposing tariffs and a number of barriers to force British consumers to buy products made within Britain. This is what the United States and Germany did decades later, and several Latin American countries did after World War II.
The policy adopted by other industrial countries, such as Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and China, was to combine formal or informal protection of their local markets with designing effective export promotion strategies.
Many economists believe that reducing barriers to international trade, such as tariffs or export restrictions, can benefit all countries. However, governments often face political contradictions between increasing trade and protecting local industries.
When such conflicts arise, barriers imposed by one country may prompt trading partners to respond with their own laws, as happened between the U.S. and China a few years ago, leading to mutual escalation and fiery statements, which is known as a trade war.
Throughout the Cold War and beyond, the United States was often seen as a champion of free trade, leading efforts to establish the World Trade Organization in 1995. But like many other countries, the United States has periodically engaged in its own trade wars, both recently and in the past.
Once, I read a statement by a lawyer named Robert Hudick, who works legally in international trade cases, saying: "International economic law has a political theatrical dimension." This statement is understandable, but critics often say that the final opinion on any play is what the audience expresses, not the actors.