The Role of World Trade Policy: a Latin American Viewpoint

Abstract

The economic development of any country is essentially its own responsibility and must basically depend upon its own economic policy and internal efforts. There are, however, considerable limitations both on a country’s freedom of decision and action in the field of economic policy and on the effectiveness of its actions — particularly in respect of external trade policy. Such restraints are an inevitable result of the interplay of international economic relations; they imply limitations to national sovereignty at the economic, and therefore also at the political, level, at least vis-à-vis the exterior.

The author is head of the Trade Policy Division of the U.N. Economic Commission for Latin America. However, the opinions expressed in this paper are not necessarily those of ECLA’s secretariat nor do they in any way commit the organisation for which he works.