Embargoes, quotas, and standards are tools that countries use:

Embargoes, quotas, and standards are tools that countries use:

A) to reduce exports

B) to punish other countries

C) to restrict imports

D) to raise prices of domestic goods.

Answer: C) to restrict imports

Among the general barriers to trade, the most commonly used are embargoes, quotas, and standards that countries employ mostly for the restriction of imports. These are some of the measures falling under a larger group of barriers that governments put into place in a bid to regulate imports into their home markets. Although they can be of various types, their main objective is to control or at least moderate the influx of foreign goods.

This is the most severe type of import restriction where the foreign country is shut out completely or certain products are entirely banned. For instance, the United States has had most of its Cuba embargo for decades where it has restricted most Cuban imports except FDA-approved charity medicines and samples. The quotas prescribed bound the amount of a product that can be imported during a given period. For instance, the U. S has applied quotas in access to imported sugar to shield local producers from market forces from different parts of the world. Policies such as standards which end up being put in place to ensure that safety and or quality is upheld can be used as import restrictions by putting up barriers that may be hard for imported goods to meet. Some practices of the European Union include genetically modified organisms which in essence put high thresholds on many farming imports from countries that have a higher inclination towards GMOs.

These tools may have other secondary impacts beyond import restriction as some of these tools may be used to shield local industries, enhance security and or as tools to apply pressure to certain nations. Nevertheless, their principal and immediate effect is on imports. However, it should be understood that those measures can also help reach some policy goals at the same time they raise prices for consumers, decrease the choice and can provoke reactions from trading partners. Hence the nature of circumstances that give rise to them is such that countries employ them sparingly thus weighing their domestic needs with integration in the global market.