History of international trade

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Categories: International relations | International trade | International economics | Economic history

The history of international trade chronicles the way that the flow of trade over long distances has shaped, and been shaped by history. This article deals with the "economic history" of international trade and the history of theoretical economics in the field of international trade.

In the era before the rise of the nation state, the term 'international' trade cannot be literally applied, but simply means trade over long distances; the sort of movement in goods which would represent international trade in the modern world.

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Chronology of free trade theory and practise

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Pre 1500

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1500 - 1776

  • 1500 In the sixteenth century Holland was the centre of trade and of free trade. The Netherlands imposed no exchange controls, and advocated the free movement of goods.
  • 1592 Japan introduced a system of foreign trade licenses to prevent smuggling and piracy.
  • 1580 Portugal's loss of independence to Spain creates a monopoly in spices from the Indies; without competition the Spanish were able to raise European prices, and shut the free-trading Dutch out of the market.
  • 1602 The Dutch East India Company is formed.
  • 1604 Hugo Grotius publishes Mare liberum (The Free Seas), advocating open use of the sea by maritime trade of all nations. In Britain, parliament moves in favour of free trade, but opposes the Dutchman's call for unlimited navigation rights; English and Dutch Republic traders are fierce rivals.
  • 1651 Act of Navigation permits only English or originating-country ships to carry goods into England.
  • 1654 After defeat in the First Anglo-Dutch War the Dutch agreed to respect the Act of Navigation in the Treaty of Westminster.
  • 1685 The first British outpost in the East Indies was established in Sumatra.
  • 1713 Important international trading rights are mostly assigned by monopoly contract. In the Treaty of Utrecht Britain receives the Asiento slave-trading contract, and secures the Canadian fur trade for the Hudson's Bay Company.
  • 1751 Benjamin Franklin's Observations Concerning the Increase of Mankind, Peopling of Countries, &c. ([1]) argues that competition from third-country suppliers would prevent British merchants selling manufactured goods above world prices to the American colonies, in the liberal tradition of free trade. However, the same document advocates mercantile laws as "generative laws" which "strengthen a Country doubly". Mercantilism was a nationalist theory which dominated thought about the correct trade policy to adopt in eighteenth century Europe: Export as much as possible, but import the minimum to create a "favourable" trade balance.
  • 1756 Richard Cantillon criticized the prevailing mercantile approach to trade which emphasised manufacturing; the Physiocrats emphasized the domestic agricultural sector.
  • 1764 The Sugar Act raises a 3 pence per gallon tarrif on molasses imported from the French West Indies, to make British West Indies sugar more competitive in the American colonies. Since there is insufficient supply from the British West Indies New England merchants are forced to buy the taxed sugar from the French West Indies anyway, with the tariff acting as an unpopular means of wealth transfer to the British exchequer from consumers in the colonies.
  • 1770 Turgot's Lettres sur la liberté du commerce des grains demands the end to restrictions on free trade in grain, with the claim that all parties would thereby benefit.
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1776 - 1841

  • 1776: An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, questioned the wisdom of Mercantilism. Adam Smith argued that economic specialization could benefit nations just as much as firms. Since the division of labour was restricted by the size of the market, he said that countries having access to the largest markets would be able to divide labour more efficiently and thereby become more productive. Smith was later to say that he considered all rationalizations of import and export controls "dupery", which hurt the trading nation at the expense of specific industries.
  • 1799 The Dutch East India company, formerly the world's largest company goes bankrupt, partly due to the rise of competitive free trade.
  • 1815 The British Corn Laws are introduced, preventing grain imports.
  • 1816 In line with isolationist opinion, the US Congress extended its 1789 tariff to manufactured goods. The intention of limiting free trade was to help local industries compete with the products of industrial England.
  • 1817: James Mill, Robert Torrens, and especially David Ricardo showed that free trade might benefit the industrially weak as well as the strong, in the famous theory of comparative advantage. In Principles of Political Economy Ricardo advanced the doctrine still considered the most counterintuitive in economics:
Both countries benefit when a totally inefficient producer sends the merchandise it produces least badly to a country able to produce it more efficiently at home.
  • 1818 The majority of European intellectual opinion is persuaded by Ricardo's argument.
  • 1828 The "Tariff of Abominations" is signed into U.S law with the express intention of raising the domestic price of British manufactured goods. This was in the interests of Northern producers, but was unpopular in the South, especially because England reduced agricultural imports in response.
  • 1832 The U.S. starts to lower tariffs, but not enough to avoid the Nullification Crisis; South Carolina felt that the tariffs of 1828 and 1832 were against its vital economic interests and tried to pass the Ordinance of Nullification, declaring both federal tariffs null and void within state borders.
  • 1833 The U.S. tariff issue is defused by a protectionist, Henry Clay, who promotes a staged reduction of tariffs down to the levels of 1816.
  • 1839 Opium War - Britain invades China to overturn the Chinese bar on opium imports (Britain was shipping a ton of opium per day from India into Chinese ports). The British case was argued in Ricardian terms against the import barriers the Chinese wished to impose; parliament argued that the trade in opium should not be restrained.
  • 1841 Friedrich List's Das Nationale System der Politischen Okonomie disputed the equivalence between individuals and countries in the conduct of trade. Within a country the ideal economic system would be the free market, but the importance of developing national productive power made free trade between nations a danger for a country specializing in agriculture. He said that such a country would stagnate and never reach an industrial stage of development. He compared a period of protectionism for an industrially weak nation to a period of education for an individual; costly in the short term, but paying off in time. He acknowledged the immediate economic advantages of free trade, and advocated returning to this policy as soon as the 'industrial education' of Germany was complete.
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1842 - 1889

  • 1842 first opium war ends.
  • 1844 The ascendancy of free trade was primarily based on national advantage. That is, the calculation made was whether it was in any particular country's self-interest to open its borders to imports. Ricardo and others had shown that it might well be, but John Stuart Mill proved that a country with monopoly pricing power on the international market could manipulate the terms of trade through maintaining tariffs, and that the response to this might be reciprocity in trade policy. This was taken as evidence against the universal doctrine of free trade, as it was believed that more of the economic surplus of trade would accrue to a country following reciprocal, rather than completely free, trade policies.
  • 16 May, 1846 - Repeal of the Corn Laws passed by the house of commons.
  • 1848 The infant industry scenario developed by J.S. Mill anticipated New Trade Theory by promoting the theory that government had the "duty" to protect young industries, although only for such a time as would be necessary for them to develop full capacity. This theory became policy in many countries, these nations attempting to industrialize and out-compete English exporters.
  • 1868 The Japanese Meiji Restoration lead the way to Japan opening its borders and quickly industrializing through free trade. Under bilateral treaties restraint of trade imports to Japan were forbidden.
  • 1873 The Wiener Börse slump signals the start of the continental Long Depression, during which support for protectionism grows.
  • 1879 Influenced by List's nationalist argument for industrial protect Biskmark abandons the German free trade policy, enacting tariffs over he objections of his National Liberal Party allies.
  • 1888 Benjamin Harrison wins the US presidency on a protectionist ticket.
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1889 - 1945

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1946 - 1995

For the World Trade Organization Chronology of Free Trade see: WTO 1986 - 2005.

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1996 - Present day

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See also

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References

  • Krugman, Paul., 1996 Pop Internationalism. Cambridge: MIT Press,
  • Mill, John Stuart., 1844 Essays on Some Unsettled Questions of Political Economy
  • Mill, John Stuart., 1848 Principles of Political Economy with some of their Applications to Social Philosophy (Full text)
  • Smith, A. 1776, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations
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External links