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Tariffs: International Trade and Tariff

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How do government tariffs impact on imported goods? What are the pros and cons of these tariff and what are the likely future trends.

Tariff is tax that a government collects on goods coming into a country. It is a tax which is levied on imports across national boundaries or other geographical regions and exports in a few cases (Lv, 2000). Originally, applying tariffs was first based on financial purpose, so it is a regular but most significant source of fiscal revenue to governments. Generally, a country with strong economy and lying in an advantageous position tends to pursue a free trade policy. At that time, the principal function of tariffs is tax collection. By contrast, a country with weak economy and lying in a disadvantageous …show more content…

Hence, “the supply rise of the consumption good in the world market lowers the international price of this good and then Foreign’s firms reallocate resources to the investment sector”(Lee, 2011, p.261). Additionally, Silvia (2011) has reconstructed historical data on tariffs and trade for 23 countries based on the relationship between tariff and trade growth to demonstrate that tariffs adjust the national economic activities through tax rate. For example, governments use tariffs as tools to balance supply and demand, for tariffs can change structure of imports and exports to settle market prices.

However, the empirical analysis of the relationship between tariffs and economic growth has generated mixed results. Disagreement persists among economists on how a country’s tariffs’ policies affect its economic growth rate. There are several negatives of tariffs such as damaging interests of consumers and increasing smuggling cases. In the first place, tariffs increase the price of imports and reduce the price of export commodities. This makes consumer face challenge and consumers’ interests may be compromised by the increasing price caused by high tariffs. Tariff opponents argue that the costs of tariffs cannot be ignored. These costs imposed has increased because of high tariffs imposed and consumers are forced to either buy fewer goods or spend more on

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