The United States' embargo on trade with Cuba is all-encompassing and does not even allow U.S. citizens to vacation in Cuba. Local content requirements are laws stipulating that a specified amount of a good or service be supplied by producers in the domestic market. The purpose of local content requirements is to force companies from other nations to employ local resources in their production processes-particularly labor. Administrative delays are regulatory controls or bureaucratic rules designed to impair the rapid flow of imports into a country. The central aim is protectionism.
Currency controls are restrictions on the convertibility of a currency into other currencies.
A country can restrict who is allowed to convert the home country currency or stipulate an exchange rate that is unfavorable to potential importers. Global Trading System World trade volume reached a peak in the late 1800s, only to be devastated when the United States passed the Smooth-Hawley Act in 1930. GATT was formed in 1947 by 23 nations. Success in GATT's early years began to wane in the 1980s. Uruguay Round of Negotiations was the eighth round of GATT talks within 40 years.