Sachs and Warner classified 79 countries in terms of lack of openness, but this was a composite measure which included important factors in addition to high tariffs and non-tariff barriers. Our bottom line is that the nature of the relationship between trade policy and economic growth remains very much an open question. The issue is far from having been settled on empirical grounds. We are in fact sceptical that there is a general, unambiguous relationship between trade openness and growth waiting to be discovered. There is a world of difference between the US in the 1920s, when a high tariff was combined with ferocious internal competition, and North Korea, where protectionism is combined with an absence of internal competition.
Protectionism can be bad for growth but only if accompanied by other harmful economic policies.
Again, the reality falls short of the rhetoric. Throughout the world, consumers are finding that the threat of trade sanctions is being used to dismantle consumer protection in favour of corporate rights. Despite evidence from the World Health Organisation that, once the market was opened, the US multinational tobacco companies would do their utmost to force governments to accept terms that undermined public health, a WTO disputes panel ruled against the Thai ban. This is the Landes argument turned on its head, with the impact of trade being bad rather than good for health. It is easy to see why multinationals want to remove trade restrictions, and they see the WTO as the instrument for doing so.