Export licenses may be required in order to implement partial embargoes on trade with specific nations. Standards are laws or regulations establishing health and safety standards for imported goods, frequently much stricter than those applied to domestically produced goods. Subsidies are payments made by governments to their domestic producers to enable them to compete with foreign competitors. They are usually intended to be temporary, allowing domestic producers to acquire new technology or to survive a short-term problem, but they frequently linger on for many years. It is difficult to dislodge entrenched special interests.
Taxpayers bear the costs of subsidy payments.
Trade restrictions limit world trade, diminish economic efficiency, reduce total production and employment, raise prices, and encourage retaliation. They benefit some domestic companies and their workers at the expense of foreign companies and workers, and domestic consumers. While subsidies benefit some domestic companies and workers in exporting industries, tariffs reduce exports. Tariffs shift resources and production from more effective to less effective producers. Arguments used to support trade restrictions include the infant industry argument and the national security or strategic industry argument.