Unintentional Trade Barriers

If we walk into a supermarket in Boston and are able to buy Indian spices, Colombian coffee and Ecuadorian Bananas , we are experiencing the effects of International trade.

International trade allows us to obtain products we need in our day to day life from other countries and with a lower cost and also to sell our products to them. International trade is the reason why we  can choose between driving an American car , a Japanese car or an Italian car. As a result of International trade there is a greater competition in the market and therefor more competitive prices which allows people with different purchasing powers to find goods and services that best fit their needs.

Trading internationally gives consumers the opportunity to obtain goods and services not available in their own countries, or available, but very costly. Today, pretty much every kind of product and service can be found on the international market : Food, clothes, jewelery etc and also services like : banking, consulting, tourism and transportation.

International trade allows countries to use their resources (land, labor, technology and natural resources ) more efficiently and focus on producing products and providing services that they are better in doing them or their resources allow them to produce. If a country can not produce a product efficiently, it can obtain that item by trading with countries that are better in producing that specific product.

But trading internationally is not always easy. There are rules and regulations which have to be followed and sometimes these regulations get over-complicated for different reasons and act like barriers for Free trade. These barriers , however, are not always intentionally created by governments to protect the domestic producers but can happen unintentionally and because of an unpredictable event.

For example, after 9/11 and beginning of "War on Terror" by the United States and Allies, America's share of world exports has decreased significantly . The number of export related American jobs has declined. In order to counter terrorism, random number of ships, airplanes and trucks have been constantly inspected which has caused the delay in delivery of goods. 9/11 was an unpredictable event which had  inevitable effects on the international trade.

The other example can be fluctuations in the price of crude oil in past few years because of political tension between the Iranian government and Western governments on the issue of Iran's nuclear program. In response to a possible attack on Iran's nuclear facilities, Iranian government threatened that they would block the strategic strait of Hormuz , a narrow strait  between the Gulf of Oman and Persian Gulf  through which a significant portion of world crude oil is delivered.
This threat led to an immediate rise in the price of oil which subsequently increased the prices of oil-related products including Gasoline. A blockade, not only effects Western countries economies,but it would punish , China , Iran's most important oil customer and a major consumer of Persian Gulf oil. China has invested heavily in Iranian oil fields and besides Russia, has opposed Western countries efforts to sanction Iran over its nuclear program.