'Non-tariff barriers to trade (NTBs) are trade barriers that restrict imports but are not in the usual form of a tariff. Some common examples of NTB's are anti-dumping measures and countervailing duties, which, although they are called "non-tariff" barriers, have the effect of tariffs once they are enacted.
Their use has risen sharply after the WTO rules led to a very significant reduction in tariff use. Some non-tariff trade barriers are expressly permitted in very limited circumstances, when they are deemed necessary to protect health, safety, or sanitation, or to protect depletable natural resources. In other forms, they are criticized as a means to evade free trade rules such as those of the World Trade Organization (WTO), the European Union (EU), or North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) that restrict the use of tariffs.
Some of non-tariff barriers are not directly related to foreign economic regulations, but nevertheless they have a significant impact on foreign-economic activity and foreign trade between countries.
Trade between countries is referred to trade in goods, services and factors of production. Non-tariff barriers to trade include import quotas, special licenses, unreasonable standards for the quality of goods, bureaucratic delays at customs, export restrictions, limiting the activities of state trading, export subsidies, countervailing duties, technical barriers to trade, sanitary and phyto-sanitary measures, rules of origin, etc. Sometimes in this list they include macroeconomic measures affecting trade.
Read more about Non-tariff Barriers To Trade: Six Types of Non-Tariff Barriers To Trade, Examples of Non-Tariff Barriers To Trade, Types of Non-Tariff Barriers, The Transition From Tariffs To Non-tariff Barriers, Non-tariff Barriers Today
Famous quotes containing the words barriers and/or trade:
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—Mme. Ellen Louise Demorest 1824–1898, U.S. women’s magazine editor and woman’s club movement pioneer. Demorest’s Illustrated Monthly and Mirror of Fashions, p. 203 (January 1870)
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