Editing Tariff (section)

===Protection of infant or ageing industries===
According to the economists in favour of protecting industries, free trade would condemn developing countries to being nothing more than exporters of raw materials and importers of manufactured goods. The application of the [[theory of comparative advantage]] would lead them to specialise in the production of raw materials and extractive products and prevent them from acquiring an industrial base. Protection of [[infant industries]] (e.g., through tariffs on imported products) may be needed for some developing countries to industrialise and escape their dependence on the production of raw materials.<ref name="Chang">{{cite conference |url=https://www.cepal.org/prensa/noticias/comunicados/8/7598/chang.pdf |title=Infant Industry Promotion in Historical Perspective{{snd}} A Rope to Hang Oneself or a Ladder to Climb With? |author=[[Ha-Joon Chang]] (Faculty of Economics and Politics, University of Cambridge) |date=2001 |conference=Development Theory at the Threshold of the Twenty-first Century |location=Santiago, Chile |publisher=[[United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean]] |access-date=2021-05-13 |archive-date=2021-03-08 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210308192131/https://www.cepal.org/prensa/noticias/comunicados/8/7598/chang.pdf |url-status=dead}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |title=International trade - Arguments for and against interference |url=https://www.britannica.com/topic/international-trade/Arguments-for-and-against-interference |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200603024245/https://www.britannica.com/topic/international-trade/Arguments-for-and-against-interference |archive-date=2020-06-03 |access-date=2020-05-03 |newspaper=Encyclopedia Britannica}}</ref>

Economist [[Ha-Joon Chang]] argued in 2001 that most of today's developed countries have developed through policies that are the opposite of [[free trade]] and [[laissez-faire]] such as interventionist trade and industrial policies to promote and protect infant industries. In his view, Britain and the United States have not reached the top of the global economic hierarchy by adopting free trade. As for the East Asian countries, he argues that the longest periods of rapid growth in these countries do not coincide with extended phases of free trade, but rather with phases of industrial protection and promotion. He believes infant industry protection policy has generated much better growth performance in the developing world than free trade policies since the 1980s.<ref name="Chang" />{{Undue weight inline|date=November 2024|reason=Cited 11 times, may be outdated}}

In the second half of the 20th century, [[Nicholas Kaldor]] takes up similar arguments to allow the conversion of ageing industries.<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qVfhDgAAQBAJ&q=nicholas+kaldor++free+trade&pg=PT24 |title=Free Trade: Myth, Reality and Alternatives |author=Graham Dunkley |date=2013 |publisher=Zed Books |isbn=9781848136755}}</ref> In this case, the aim was to save an activity threatened with extinction by external competition and to safeguard jobs. Protectionism must enable ageing companies to regain their competitiveness in the medium term and, for activities that are due to disappear, it allows the conversion of these activities and jobs.