Trade Barriers

[libspero]

Hi guys, this might not be entirely appropriate for an economics forum, but I have a question/ statement about trade barriers.

Today a customer asked me if our products are UL certificated as he would be selling his product to a customer in the States. I admitted that I didn't know but suspected that they must be since we are an American owned company.

I went on to check with my boss and too my surprise he just said, "UL (Underwriters Laboratories inc) is just like the CE mark that we have in the UK but none of our products have it". Why not I ask, we are an American company, surely we need it to sell the products in the US?

"No" he said, "if you're in America you don't need it, only if your selling in"... he went on to explain.. "basically it's just a trade barrier"

I was shocked! Are you allowed to do this in a free market? surely it's a double standard?

Any comments appreciated

Lib

[cells]

there is no real free market, what made you think there was?

there are tariffs everywhere, from orange juice to cars to condoms.

The reality is that “free trade” isn’t really the best option for a country.

They should term “efficient trade” and use that.

We shouldn’t be sending or closing down our car building factories because the Indians or Japanese can not do it more efficiently.

But we should be buying our grapes from Africa rather than trying to grow them ourselves because it is more efficient to grow grapes there than here (sunlight, soil, ect).

It is actually a very simple concept, but instead we do “free” trade which hurts us!!