More and more countries are closing themselves off from the global economy and imposing tariffs to protect their domestic markets. Although Donald Trump is once again threatening the European Union and Canada, the United States is not the only country playing this protectionist game. For several years, governments worldwide have introduced thousands of trade barriers annually—twice as many as a decade ago. While the trend slowed slightly in 2024, the numbers are still alarming. The latest WEI report exposes false promises and reveals the real costs.

Our latest report, titled “The resurrection of a dangerous idea. Arguments for protectionism clash with economic knowledge,” by Dr. Przemysław Rapka, dissects protectionism from its false promises to its real costs, hoping that economic populism will give way to reason before the world forgets for good what prosperity is built on free trade.

It should be kept in mind that protectionist policies and subsequent responses from other countries will lead to a decline in the welfare of the country implementing protectionism. The use of protectionist policies, on the one hand, has negative effects on its own, but on the other hand, it can trigger a negative response from the dutiful countries, which also causes other adverse effects.

Source, Warsaw Enterprise Institute (WEI)