Download pdf
Research on the Causes of Supporting Trade Protectionism in Times of Economic Recession
- 1 School of Public Administration, Nanjing Normal University, Nanjing, China
* Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Abstract
Trade protectionism has appeared many times in history during economic downturns. Free trade is believed to help economic growth, but governments often use tariffs and other barriers to protect local industries, keep jobs, and respond to political pressure in crises. Using a historical case study method with academic research, policy reports, and trade data, this study explores the reason protectionist policies serve as one of the main government policies during economic downturns, and uses a series of special periods, such as the Great Depression, the 2008 financial crisis, the US-China trade war, and the COVID-19 pandemic, as case studies to examines the government actions and economic conditions that led to protectionism in different crises. The findings demonstrate that protectionism can generate short-term economic economic benefits for countries and societies in the early stages of a crisis, but as policies are pursued over time, it can raise consumer costs, cause trade retaliation, and disrupt global supply chains, which can lead to long-term social problems. While it remains a powerful policy instrument, excessive reliance on protectionism can undermine global economic stability.
Keywords
Trade protectionism, Economic downturns, Tariffs, Non-tariff barriers (NTBs), Strategic trade policies
[1]. Eichengreen, B., & Irwin, D. A. (2010). The Slide to Protectionism in the Great Depression: Who Succumbed and Why? The Journal of Economic History, 70(4), 871-897. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022050710000756
[2]. Fajgelbaum, P. D., Goldberg, P. K., Kennedy, P. J., & Khandelwal, A. K. (2019). The return to protectionism (NBER Working Paper No. 25638). National Bureau of Economic Research. https://doi.org/10.3386/w25638
[3]. Ahn, D., & Lee, J. Y. (2021). US-China Trade War and Its Implications on the Global Economy. Journal of International Logistics and Trade, 19(4), 181-184. https://doi.org/10.24006/jilt.2021.19.4.181
[4]. Piekutowska, A., & Konopka, P. (2023). How to measure protectionism in international trade in XXI century? The regional barometer of protectionism – case of Poland. Technological and Economic Development of Economy, 29(3), 775-795. https://doi.org/10.3846/tede.2023.18345
[5]. Ehrlich, S. D., & Gahagan, C. (2023). The Multisided Threat to Free Trade: Protectionism and Fair Trade During Increasing Populism. Politics and Governance, 11(1), 223-236.https://doi.org/10.17645/pag.v11i1.6082
[6]. Mansfield, E. D., & Milner, H. V. (2012). Votes, vetoes, and the political economy of International Trade Agreements. Princeton University Press.
[7]. Klomp, J. (2025). Trump tariffs and the U.S. defense industry. PLoS One, 20(1) https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0313204
[8]. Matson, E. W. (2023). The ambiguous effect of the tariff in American economic history. National Review. Retrieved from https://www.nationalreview.com/2023/11/the-ambiguous-effect-of-the-tariff-in-american-economic-history/
[9]. Pawlak, K. (2024). How Much Neoprotectionism is There in Contemporary World Trade? Central European Economic Journal, 11(58), 21-32. https://doi.org/10.2478/ceej-2024-0003
[10]. Zahoor, N., Wu, J., Khan, H., & Khan, Z. (2023). De-globalization, International Trade Protectionism, and the Reconfigurations of Global Value Chains. Management International Review, 63(5), 823-859. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11575-023-00522-4
Cite this article
Zhang,X. (2025). Research on the Causes of Supporting Trade Protectionism in Times of Economic Recession. Advances in Economics, Management and Political Sciences,181,95-100.
Data availability
The datasets used and/or analyzed during the current study will be available from the authors upon reasonable request.
Disclaimer/Publisher's Note
The statements, opinions and data contained in all publications are solely those of the individual author(s) and contributor(s) and not of EWA Publishing and/or the editor(s). EWA Publishing and/or the editor(s) disclaim responsibility for any injury to people or property resulting from any ideas, methods, instructions or products referred to in the content.
About volume
Volume title: Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Management Research and Economic Development
© 2024 by the author(s). Licensee EWA Publishing, Oxford, UK. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and
conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license. Authors who
publish this series agree to the following terms:
1. Authors retain copyright and grant the series right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons
Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgment of the work's authorship and initial publication in this
series.
2. Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the series's published
version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgment of its initial
publication in this series.
3. Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and
during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See
Open access policy for details).